20060627

... i'm just a little worried about your brain

freaking right the hell out. interview tomorrow. 'nuff said.

20060624

ode to the taxi man

dear mr. taxi-driver-man,

are those glasses you wearing up to date? can you, by chance, see the road you are driving on? i only ask these questions because you nearly slammed into the side of my car this afternoon going something to the order of 60mph... those kind of things will cause a girl to ask questions. again, i am stressing the sight-thing, because i clearly had a green light and you clearly had a red light. not yellow. not pink. red. and yet, you still managed to build up enough speed to cause me to have to swerve out of my lane.

were you, by any chance, in a hurry? a really great hurry? because the manner in which you were conducting your very beat-up cab would evidence some sort of urgency... and yet, once you had nearly run me off the road, you slowed down to a near-crawl. this - dear sir - would not only cause a girl to ask certain questions, but it would almost always cause the aforementioned girl to draw the conclusion that you are an unrelenting, semi-blind, asshole. yes, i think 'asshole' will suffice. am i correct in assuming this? or am i being rash? are you just stupid? or blind (in which case, you really shouldn't be behind the wheel of a moving vehicle... just an observation)?

i look forward to never having to encounter you on the road, and i offer my most sincere pity to anyone who has the misfortune to step into your ill-fated cab.

yours truly -

the girl you nearly smashed

20060622

swatches

a little birdie told me about a new blog - hangoverblack - that i really enjoyed reading. very sarcastic. very good. i thought i would share.

oh. and, you're welcome

20060620

subtracting light

in response to miss trinity and the eight billion emails i am getting on a daily basis, here's an update on the photos situation - my camera is still broken and apparently because sony has discontinued the model of camera that i have, i am going to continue to have difficulty finding a place that will service the bloody thing. i am in hell as far as this goes - not being able to take photos is like having my arm cut off or something... i am a behind-the-lens-kind-of-girl and not having a functioning lens is causing me to go through withdrawals. i am seriously considering just biting the bullet (so to speak) and going to get some cheap-ass substitute camera. i. can't. handle. this. shit. no. more.

other than the camera thing, i got my first dose of dubai rush hour traffic the day before yesterday. my father and i decided to go to ikea to get some kitchen gadgets... ikea (this one is something to the order of 4 times the size of a typical ikea... totally awesome!!!) is on the other side of the city... so we leave when we think rush hour traffic will be subsiding. we were so, so, so wrong. sheik zayed road (one of two principal arteries through dubai) was a parking lot. it took us 2 hours to get less than 10 km. i was about to go postal. not only is there no evidence whatsoever of any sort of planning for the shear volume of traffic present on a daily basis, but people here cannot drive. do not understand the concept of sharing the road. think their cars are toys with stereos. apparently do not understand that turning the steering wheel causes the vehicle to change trajectory. omigod. yeah. add to that the fact that i have now listened to the cds in my dad's saab over and over and over, the lack of acceptable radio stations and my lack of supply of new music, and you are left with a natalie on the verge of losing her mind (i was driving... or rather, i was the one constantly on the brakes). wow.

ikea, on the other hand, was sublime. it was so nice to walk through a store and not be affronted with horribly designed and poorly constructed furniture (mind you, not everything at ikea is wonderful, but an overwhelming majority of it at least evidences concern with effective, efficient, and aesthetic design concerns).

now, for the job interviews...

20060615

mom, dexter's wearing my tights again

i spent the day getting lost in dubai... dad and i started in the 'deira city center' - i have never seen so many people in one place in my life. ever. it's a shopping center that goes on and goes on and keeps going; and apparently everyone, their mother, their dog, and their 12 closest friends were there today (thursday the equivalent to saturday here... it's the big 'shopping day,' i'm told). after we spent about an hour getting lost in a building, i was given the car keys and set out to get lost in the middle of a city. woo.

i didn't get into any car accidents today - whew - and i finally got to go to the beach... although today wasn't the best day to be hanging out in the sun, as it reached 50 degrees centigrade today (122 degrees fehrenheit) and i wasn't quite in the mood to end up in a puddle on the sand. so instead, i sat outside after the sun went down (still in the heat, still in the humidity), and smoked hubbly bubbly with my dad - his first time.

sweet. action.

20060606

still breathing

ok - so i haven't dropped off of the face of the planet. i have just arrived in dubai - and my camera has decided to stop working. i am going to take it in for repairs sometime tomorrow, and i will try to find some alternative method of getting images of this amazing city on my blog as soon as possible.

this city is breathtaking. the photos of dubai that were in the architectural record a few months ago do it no justice whatsoever. my father's apartment (where i am living) is in the marina... this whole area is completely new construction. in fact, the entire area surrounding the marina is currently under construction. teams of workers are erecting high-rises 24 hours a day, so the cranes atop each structure are in constant motion (i was up for most of the night last night and sat on the balcony to watch). it's almost as if the city were inhabited by very slow-moving lighted dinosaurs that are growing each day.

i am really quite upset that my camera isn't working, because i got to fly over kuwait at night and the lighted coastline was absolutely stunning. i finally got to see the burj al arab hotel from the outside (i'm going on a tour of the building on friday, i think), and it's absolutely beautiful. i am somewhat relegated to the apartment for a day or so, as i have no transportation around the city until this weekend (thursday and friday are the weekends here), and it is painfully hot during the day right now, so unless i want to turn into a pool of sweat by hiking the twenty-something-odd miles back into the center of the city - which i am not to keen on right now - i am going to stick to walking around the marina until thursday afternoon, at which time i will get a chance to drive (as in actually drive, not just ride in a car... somewhat frightening to be honest) around the city.

now i am going to try to sleep, as jetlag is a really big bastard.
t.t.f.n.