better with age... like fine wine or something to that effect

so, my first birthday in dubai... 23 years and counting. yeah.

i have had the most wonderfully super dooper day... all starting with a healthy dose of friday morning cartoons and very strong coffee. then i was schlepped to a wonderful dim sum place half-way across town where the wonderful owner gave me a jade good luck charm because i know chinese tea etiquette. then ice cream cake - chocolate with reese's peanut butter cups (sigh) - and presents... not to mention that i had 'happy birthday' sung to me in africanse for the first time. so freaking cool.

and to top off this splendiferous day, i have been so very touched by the amount of my friends half way across the planet who remembered my birthday... i have received some sort of ridiculous amount of happy birthday messages today... kinda makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. i love love love my friends and i thank all of them for remembering me... sincerely. thanks.

3 cheers for chocolate ice cream cake and warm-fuzzies.
cheers. cheers. cheers.

freedom is...

amazing! i got to see ursula rucker perform last night at evory lounge in the emirates mall last night. i was awestruck by her sincerity, her incredibly powerful lyrics, and her performance. most importantly, the message she had to send needed to be heard (check out the lyrics listed on her website).

i was, on the other hand, appalled by the behavior of the people in the club. i have never been so embarrassed to be part of an audience in my life. people wouldn't shut up... in fact, as soon as ursula began to sing/speak, they immediately turned up the volume. idiots were shouting at each other to be heard over her... ms. rucker just kept performing as if people weren't behaving like morons. i would have jumped off the stage and tackled the drunken idiots stumbling and screaming in front of the stage... but then again, i have no patience for inconsiderate morons. c'est la vie.

learning to lose the meaning

yes, i'm a slacker... but forgive me for not wanting to publicly vent my noxious frustration at my current lack of purpose. it's a strange down-shift... from being so busy i could hardly breathe to having absolutely nothing to do but sit helplessly/hopelessly in front of my (bad ass) computer and look for a job that i know - on the inside - isn't coming. i'm coming to grips with the fact that i am a woman in the middle east and for that, i will be forever looked down upon, forever undesirable in the workplace. c'est la vie, but i don't have to be happy about it.

i'm just waiting... waiting for the interviews that were scheduled and then delayed because of 'summer vacations,' waiting for my portfolio to come in the mail (even though it was mailed 'overnight' 3 weeks ago), waiting for the heat to subside, waiting to make some friends, waiting to have a chance to make some sort of positive difference, waiting to be not-miserable. waiting. waiting. waiting. and i'm running out of patience.

vanno gli azzurri!!!

hell yes! the beautiful italians won the world cup!!! omigod... when they went to penalties, i thought i was going to have a heart attack! i have been bantering with people since last week about how the italians were going to win the cup... and they did! i am just so sorry to see zidane go out of his amazing career in such a disgrace. his is an amazing athlete and i can only hope that he isn't remembered for this fault, but for his amazing skill in the game of soccer...

anywho... va italia!!! i sweated the match out, outside in dubai, in my infamous italia sweatshirt... and it was completely worth every sweaty second!!!

part-time pirate

apparently, my interview didn't go as well as i thought, as i've heard nothing. no. thing. at. all. yours truly isn't suited for this whole interview-thing... patience is not a virtue i possess... and i also lack the self-restraint necessary not to tell someone to 'piss off' for being so rude as to not even send me an email telling me to bugger off. c'est la vie. i am applying at other firms. i'm sick of waiting for people who obviously lack the common decency to communicate.

i'm becoming slightly stir-crazy. i don't do well when i have nothing to do, and one can only do research for so long without going a little batty. i have no car of my own, nothing to do, no one i know here (other than my father), it's too freaking hot to get myself lost (not to mention that it would take me hours to walk to downtown), and i'm flat broke. all i want is to get a job so that i can at least have the means to start exploring this beautiful city... so i can stop being a mooch... so i can use the bleeding skills i spent five f#$%ing years cultivating in my own, personal hell - better known as architecture school.

and to make things worse, i have no one to talk to about this - hence the venting session on the internet. voi la.

you are the company you keep

so... the interview went well. i was promised 'something' in the form of what i'm assuming will be an offer, so now i get to just wait on pins and needles to receive some sort of official offer - either today or tomorrow.

to occupy my time, i've been speeding around dubai in a really cool alfa romeo over the weekend. it's really refreshing to be able to drive on the highway and not max out at 80 mph (the jeep threatened to shake itself apart every time i went above 80)... not to mention that the transmission is this awesome hybrid between a manual and automatic - sweet, sweet acceleration.

oh happy day.

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

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

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

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

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...