Just a simple daily routine of those that suffer the despise of technology:

First you wake up in the morning to look at your blackberry and you’d have to press the unlock button a gazillion times until it actually opens. More struggles into checking things. You go downstairs and you look for your laptop’s charger. You get pissed at whoever misplaced it. finally, you find it hidden in somewhere you would’ve never thought of – just because it wants to annoy you (the charger – it hides in that place on purpose).

You turn on the laptop, and you go on Facebook. Facebook chat is open and people start talking and the browser freezes and you’d have to close all tabs – including those that you were using for purely study-purposes. You get pissed and you decide you don’t want to use Firefox anymore. But hey, you’ve already decided you didn’t want to use Internet Explorer or Safari because you had issues with them before anyway.

You download Google Chrome (thanking God there’s a new web browser you haven’t had a fight with already). Of course, you have issues installing it.

You then decide that Facebook might be too risky at first. You try to log in to your WordPress account (which you had trouble doing using Firefox) and, surprise! You can’t log in from Google Chrome either. You’ve had posts saved on your computer piling up, and you still can’t post them.

You get pissed, as usual, and decide I don’t want to study physics anymore! So you try to find ways to procrastinate, and you go on YouTube. Well, another surprise! Videos don’t work.

You think that this may be a sign you should go back to physics, so you go on Gmail to chat with your physics buddy and ask her questions of things you need to know. Ah well, you’ve already gotten used to this by now. Gmail chat is not working. Your mind brings your blog back to thought, and you think, hey, why not contact WordPress support? You look for it, and don’t find it. You decide you want to try Skype, but your friend says every time she adds you it says you’re unavailable.

You get pissed and you decide you need consultation from your geek friend, so you try to use your super-awesome Blackberry to bbm her, and ha! Your Blackberry stops working. No bbm, no internet browsing, no sending (or receiving) emails, no text messaging, not even calling.

You think of contacting STC, but ah well, you already know the end of that so you don’t even bother.

You just go on stupid Facebook again and write stuff on her wall.

You find out that your friend’s Facebook account was abused by her friend and she read all the things you wrote for her.

You curse your life and the day technology was born.

I know, being hated by technology sucks.

My friend and I were just talking about it. Before the exam stats, you see everyone chatting and a bit nervous, but generally energetic. Look at them afterwards – they’re practically dead.

While you’re in there, you have to squeeze your mind and keep squeezing it trying to get the slightest idea of how to solve the fricken question in front of you, and you do so for long, prolonged, 25 minutes. Oh, I’m sorry, 25 times 8 actually. I remember when I took the SAT, it took me (all together) about 7 hours. That’s like a school day. Except more torturous. The breaks are not breaks, because your brain is still working and your brain is constantly working during all these 7 hours.

Not to mention pure boredom. I’m taking a CTY stupid physics exam, and it is too damn hard and boring that I’m blogging while taking it.

I mean, those people that try to develop torture methods are stupid for not thinking of this. Instead of sending terrorists to Guantanamo, just lock them in a room and force them to take the SAT. No going out until they score a perfect 2400 score. They just have to take one every single day. Their brains will be doomed from the first place by just taking it so they won’t make any harm to the world. Yep, the SAT does nothing but damages the brain.

Oh, and for real bad guys, make them take the SAT, TOEFL, and suffer experiencing all sorts of CTY AP physics exams. Oh, I’m pretty sure they’ll confess all that they did and swear on their throats not to ever commit any crime ever again.

I’m very serious.

Wish me luck with the never-ending AP exam. I already screwed the hell up in part A.

I have a question to you: do you multitask a lot?

Well, I do. I even wrote about it in some old post.

OK, mom, if you’re reading this, then you’re right. The reason why I can’t get to do anything ever seems to have been , afterall, my lack of focus.

You see, I always multitask. And as people think (and by people I mean I), multitasking increases productivity and fights boredom, it hell doesn’t. It even does some really bad stuff to your brain on the long term. The end result: multitaskers will be losers.

Read this brief summary (less than a page, really) of a study conducted in Stanford about multitasking.

And there it is, the reason I can’t sleep at night, the reason why I can’t finish anything on time, why even when I’m excited about something I always find myself working on something else, why I can never focus, why I always just have to daydream at least once while reading… and the list just keeps going on and on… because I multitask.

A piece of advice: if you multitask, just STOP.

Pray to God I manage.

1. I can finish an extremely hard physics course (even if I can’t. Even if I’m a billion years late.)

2. I can write 2 MUN resolutions.

3. I can finish all my college applications.

4. I can finish 2 Think Green projects.

5. I can read 6 books.

6. I can still maintain 2 blogs while doing that.

7. I can still see my friends.

8. I can sleep at night without dreaming about someone I know.

9. I can stop myself from wasting time.

10. I can do all of those without pressuring myself or agonizing about it.

Because I’m a superwoman.

If people can start a revolution

Bike all of Europe

Get raped

Build the pyramids with nothing but their hands

Convert from religions

Get into MIT

Get PhDs before the age of 28

Drive in Saudi Arabia (as women)

Get an 800 score on the critical reading section of the SAT

Win the Nobel prize

Become dictators

Ease AP

Get a full marks on Mrs. Jinan’s biology exams

Be famous

Kill

Live

Then the hell can’t I do it?

We are super women.

I’m a super woman.

To hell with impossible.

Every single night. I dream of people I know. And there’s this single person, who’s really annoying because he/she keeps popping into my dreams every single night. I promise, there wasn’t a dream I dreamt that this person wasn’t in. He/she is hunting me, every night.

It’s serious. Every morning I wake up, I remember the dream I had that night and see if this “nashba” (an Arabic word that is very expressive yet has no perfect English translation. Closest meaning is someone that just sticks with you like a choke in the throat and you feel like you just want to spit it.) person was in my dream or not. Not a day the answer was no, which just sparks up the bad mood from the morning.

Has this ever happened to you? Dreaming about people every night? I dreamed of almost everyone I know; from school, outside, from camp, volunteering, random waiters at restaurants, bikers I see in the street, family, Coldplay, whoever. And they come together. And this person just has to be there in all dreams.

Now I can’t sleep because I fear of dreaming every night. I’ve been struggling insomnia for 5 days so far. Any suggestions? Your friend Samar is dying here.

So we have to admit that we live in a loser nation. Admit it!

We’re so far behind the developed world in pretty much, everything. Just name it. Education, media, publications, democracy…

For example, let’s compare between our beloved Saudi Arabia and the UK.

Which is more industrialized, developed, and influential? Hmmm, does the answer really need all that much thinking?

Let’s look at comparison perspective, which has more books, or libraries?

In London, you have a bookstore at about every corner. They sell books in their gas stations for God’s sake (while our gas stations………….). In Riyadh, on the other hand, has how many libraries/book stores? I’m not exactly sure but definitely way, way, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less. In the Eastern Province, where I live, we pretty much have Jarir, Al-Obaikan, and… did I say Jarir?

Here’s a simple relationship:

Books/libraries >> reading >> intellectual society >> development.

We seriously need to work on this issue in our country. As long as it’s still this way, we’ll always stay losers.

Seeing Waterstone’s everywhere I go in London really got to me. I think you can tell. So how was the blogging sphere while I was gone? Any new bloggers joining the squad?

TELEVISION. After supper, I could tell from the synthetic colors flashing in their windows that quite a few people kept changing channels just as I did: a bleached-blond chanteuse singing old Turkish songs, a child eating chocolate, a woman prime minister saying everything was going to turn out fine, a football match on an emerald field, a Turkish pop group, journalists arguing about the Kurdish question, American police cars, a child reading the Koran, a helicopter exploding into flames in midair, a gentleman walking onto the stage and doffing his hat as the audience applauds, the same woman prime minister, a housewife telling an enquiring microphone a thing or two as she hangs up her laundry, an audience applauding the woman who has given the right answer in a general knowledge quiz… at one point I looked out the window and it occurred to me that – except for the travelers on the Bosphorus ships whose lights I could see in the distance – all of Istanbul was watching the same images.

Don’t you ever think about this world – how it’s really weird how there’s another person exactly like you that has a life? That feels, thinks, and looks at things differently, that things happen to this person just like they happen to you?

Don’t you also think that there isn’t only one person that thinks like that, but billions and billions of people all around the world as well?

Don’t you also think that as you’re reading this post right now thinking how stupid it is, there might be a person that’s reading the exact same thing, and getting the exact same impression right at this moment?

Anyway, sorry for blabbing I just got internet and it’s so exciting. I just wanna blog!

OK so the official post starts now. Promise.

Do you know how in our society, if a girl or a guy smiles at a random person from the other sex, he/she is considered a 9ay3a right? Well, if anyone smiles at a random person then It’s considered like, what the hell?

However in normal places, like Europe for example, it’s considered rude just staring at a random person’s face or not returning a smile.

Our beloved prophet called for smiling. Why is it that their societies are the ones practicing the calls of our religion?

OK leave religion out of it. Why are our societies such losers while theirs are winners? Am I the only one that thinks this is weird? And sad?

I think it’s weird. And sad.

“Be ze shange you want to see in ze world.”

Guess what? I can’t use it.

God, I despise STC (my telecommunications company) so bad I can’t even express it. It’s like, you know how I feel about Israel, right? I kind of feel the same way about STC, except the battle with them isn’t so destroying. I can win it, because I know that Arabs no matter how much they hate Israel, they’d never go and actually fight. However, Saudis hate STC, and they’d fight STC until their very last breath.

Let’s start a fight. Who’s with me?

Speaking of fighting, there’s another thing we must all fight: flies.

There’s been a fly in our house for the past two days and it has done nothing but pressure my nerves. Eventually, I managed to eradicated it. It was sitting on the phone, and I took the shining white killing stick, and bravely hit it with it. It deserved that brutal death. My little brother came prancing with joy near it to make sure it died, and he actually held it with his hand.

“Eiyad NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

Shocked, he unconsciously jumped back throwing the fly in the air, and we watched it being thrown in the air in a projectile motion, to land right on the phone again.

We still haven’t used that phone ever since that incident, in case you’re wondering why no one picks up the phone at our house anymore.

However, our joy was too good to be true. I believe that flies are truly a conspiracy theory. Another one came; actually they were two. They came to take revenge for their parasitical friend. We still haven’t managed to capture any of them.

This is a war starting call. Who’s with me in the fight against the nasty flies?

(Allow me to quote you, Sara Alamoodi)

Well I know that it’s such a cliché topic and all, but I just found a way to deal with it and I thought I’d share.

My college list is horrible. I bet I won’t get into any of them. In fact, I know I won’t get into any of them. But that’s OK. Why is it a problem if I don’t get in?

I remember exactly this time last year, how I was, how I thought and looked at stuff. If we were two different people (me this year and me last year) I probably wouldn’t like myself. I grew up. One year makes a huge difference, and I mean a huuuuuge difference. Other than math, English, and thinking skills, my personality changed like hell. The amount of things I learned and the way I look at things…

I’m more mature now. It just got me thinking. Our minds are physically not capable of thinking in an older way. The older you grow, the more capacity you feel your mind has, and the more layers unfold in the way you look at life. I think, if one year makes this much difference, how am I going to change next year? In fact, it would be much better applying next year. I don’t want to go to college now, I want to go when I’m more mature and when I can evaluate and look at things differently, and I truly believe that this would even show on my college applications. So, if I don’t get into Stanford or Cornell or or or… this year, who cares? I have a billion other opportunities in the future. I don’t want to go anyway. God knows what I might do… play around in the first year and doom my GPA? No, thanks.

So think of it this way. You’d probably get into CPP (yes, all of you that are reading this right now), and then you’d have a whole year of improving yourself while taking extensive courses. Not only would you be more mature, but also smarter. If you don’t, you have the country’s scholarships. If not, PMU or another local college, and you can just transfer later. If not, then just take the year off and do something you love. Colleges even consider the fact that you took a year off (that you’re more mature) and they’d want to see how you used that year. You’ll have a way better chance of getting into your top choice colleges later, not to mention that you’d have gone through the process before and you’re an experienced applicant now. Everything will be better next year.

This year is only practice, just like the SAT. First time is only practice.

One last point of pep talk.

God has it all written. If we don’t get in, it’s God’s will, and God knows best so maybe it’s really better that we’re not going (sorry for using “we”).

Be confident, apply just for the sake of applying, and know that what doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger. There’s always a plan B, and in a lot of times plan B turns out to be way better than plan A.

Good luck, may we all succeed.