People hate me

A hysterical woman came to where I work, and she was desperate for help. Everyone was busy except for me, so I came out to help her. She took one look at me and said "I don't want HER."

A woman in dire need of assistance, and her racism prevented her from accepting help from me. I'm more sad for her than I am offended by her.

Similarly, a couple of days ago I was grocery shopping with my sister and an old woman grumbled past us. Right when I saw her face, I turned to my sister and said "it looks like she wants to yell some obscenities at us." And, Lo and behold, she growled at us saying "you should've stayed where you came from!" and then she hurried away.

The reason I was upset this time was because she offended my intelligence by not coming up with a more unique slur. If you're going to be crass enough to shout racist things at someone, at least be creative.

I've observed people's behaviour and I have concluded that roughly 18% of people hate me.

I found a tiny piece of paper in an obscure pocket in my wallet just now that says: "Royal Message: oh you found me! LOL! You must have been bored & therefore...found me. LMAO. ROFL" (December 23, 2007). Courtesy of my little sister, no doubt.

I guess this can only mean one thing. I need a new wallet.

The Arab World's Tribute to Michael Jackson

The Definition of Irony

I was with my friend last week and I decided to change her cellphone voicemail to my voice saying this:

"Hello?....hello?....HELLO?...WHO IS THIS?.........haha just kidding leave a message." Beep.

And I was laughing & rubbing my hands with evil glee because people kept falling for it and having conversations with the recorded message.

And then I called her today...and I fell for it.

Excuse me while I go hang my head in shame.

The Stink

Stink: (noun) a strong offensive smell; stench.

This stink I refer to is...the smell of unwashed skin, month-old sweaty clothing, never-brushed teeth, and occasional urine. Then add smoking/alcohol into the mix and you've got an explosively offending stench.

As a product of my field, I must help smelly people quite often. Now, I work in a low-income neighbourhood and I understand that poverty plays an important role in the physical state of a person. I am not a monster. But if I'm trying to help someone, and I can't come within a 50 metre radius because he or she smells so bad, then there is something wrong.

Seriously, there is only a certain amount of stink I can ingest into my lungs before I go into a stink-coma. I say "ingest" because the stink is so heavy and concentrated that I feel like it's actually settling in and eating away at my lungs.

If you have a home, you have access to a shower and can thus bathe yourself (homeless people I can excuse from this). You can buy a toothbrush & toothpaste at Dollarama. You can wash your clothes at a laundromat for a dollar. Or if that's too expensive for you, at least soak them in water and hang them out the window to dry - ANYTHING. I'm sorry if I'm being rude, but if any stinky people are reading this, PLEASE spare my weak nostrils from more assault.

My nose is so fatigued. In addition to this, I get extremely paranoid as I'm leaving work that I've somehow contracted the smell. I have to inconspicuously sniff my hijab and shirt as I walk out to make sure I'm not emanating the same smell.

Possible solutions that I have brainstormed:

1. Wear this shirt and hope my clients notice.

2. Wear a surgical mask and tell people it's because I'm afraid of swine flu.

3. Clothespin to pinch my nose.

4. Cover my face with my hijab and pretend it's because I'm very modest.

5. Quit my job. And field.

6. Just withstand it until it burns a hole in my lungs and/or stomach and consequently die.

Hmm.

When you Believe

Beautiful song.

to the girl on the bus who was wearing hooker heels & apparently forgot to wear pants today

1. Do you realize that you look sleazy, not pretty?

2. Did you feel the old man leaning dangerously close to you on the bus in order to sniff your hair?

3. Don't you understand that you attract looks of lust, and not admiration? And most of the men eying you are old and dirty.

4. I feel so sad that you are willingly objectifying yourself.

I feel like posting this on Missed Connections.

I bought the Twilight series for my little sister. She absolutely loves me for it. And yes, I am going to read them, too. Shut up.

Beautiful Hijabs

I was buying a water bottle at Old Navy yesterday, and the young, white female cashier looked at me and said "wow your hee-job is beautiful!" And I was like "umm thanks, it was a gift..." while enchanting her with a confused smile. My sister later told me I should've done some da'wah to her by saying: "Why don't you try it out sometime?"

Then, this morning a Muslim woman came up to me on the subway and she's like "I see you around a lot and I notice you have really nice hijabs. Where do you get them from?" So I told her.

I just realized that there's no point to this post. Bye.

Actually there is - I have nice hijabs and even white people think so. So there.

Bye for real now. Bye.

So....that's all I think...okay bye...actually WAIT!

I recently needed to make a whole bunch of calls at my workplace. I realized very quickly that I leave the gayest voicemails ever (pardon my French). You know when you kind of babble in a voicemail and then realize it a little bit too late? Me.

This is what a typical voicemail of mine looks/sounds like:

Voicemail: Hi you've reached Vicky, please leave your name and number after the beep and I'll call you back. *Beep*

Hi this message is for Vicky. My name is Asmaa and I'm calling from (organization name). If you could give me a call back today, that would be great. My number here is...ummm hold on a sec. You know, I should really have this number memorized so I don't leave silly messages like this. Heh heh. (Scrambles around desperately to find a business card or something.) Okay here it is, 416-911-9111. Okay? So yeah, give me a call back today if you can. Or hey you could email me, too. My email is A as in apple, S as in sam, M as in man, H as in horse, U as in...U. S as in sam and S as in sam. at yahoo.ca. And uhhh...yeah I think that should be it for now. Thanks, bye. Oh sorry, one more thing by the way: this is regarding the client Bob Loblaw that I need information about. Okay bye for real now. Bye.

Who wouldn't want to kick me in the face after that?

I am Tall

Woman #1: "how tall is your husband?"

Woman #2: "as tall as her" (points to Asmaa).

What do you dream?

I was having a talk with my brother today, and he asked me something I found shocking: "what do you dream?" And he said that my list could be anything I wanted - it was my utopia, my ideal, my own "genie in a bottle" three wishes.

It took me a while, but I came up with a list of things I dream for in my life. But the content of the list is not as important as the question - what do you dream? And how many of us have asked ourselves that? How many of us have allowed ourselves to unshackle the fetters around our minds and hearts, and just dream something?

As we grow older, it seems our capacity to dream is diminished. I want to start over - I want to dream again.

It reminds me of a hadith where the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was sitting with some companions and he said to them: "tamannu" (wish). And the companions wished for the things they wanted - some wished for wealth to donate in the cause of Allah, some wished for martyrdom. But what struck me the most about this hadith is that specific question and demand - wish.

The messenger (S.A.W.) said, "Whoever loves to meet Allah, Allah loves to meet him, and whoever hates to meet Allah, Allah hates to meet him" (Bukhari). I dream to be among those who love to meet Allah.

And I dream that our future looks something like this.



What do you dream?

This past month is the first time I've contemplated the possibility of living the rest of my life alone.

a summary of today

Best food item of the day:

Cherries. And nutella. (Not together, but it's an interesting idea.)

Best conversation of the day:

Placement supervisor: Asmaa I just wanted to let you know, I'm going to start paying you on Monday.

Asmaa: oh, okay. Cool.

(My placement supervisor hired me for a summer student position.)

Funniest Youtube clip of the day:



Worst moment of the day:

Paper cut followed by talking to a client who had damaging breath.

Best quote from an email forward of the day:

"If a man takes five showers a day, his body will be clean. Praying five times a day helps me clean my mind." -Muhammad Ali

How far would you go for love?

CAIRO -- A 25-year-old Egyptian man cut off his own penis to spite his family after he was refused permission to marry a girl from a lower class family, police reported Sunday.

After unsuccessfully petitioning his father for two years to marry the girl, the man heated up a knife and sliced off his reproductive organ, said a police official.

The man was rushed to the hospital but doctors were unable to reattach the severed member.

No comments of mine will come close to elucidating this story, so I shall refrain.

Stalker Heaven

So I'm sure that most of you are acquainted with Craigslist. Now, I was looking at Craigslist because I had to put up an event posting for my supervisor. And I happened upon a section called "Missed Connections."

I have to be honest, I sat and read this for almost an hour. I was appalled at the ludicrousness (is that a word?) of the people who post in this section. Here's a little sample for those of you who are too lazy to click on the link:

My friend and I were walking in and about Kensington yesterday. We saw you on a side street at about four, with an adorable spotted dog named Boo. We pet your dog, commented on how cute she is, and then chickened out from telling you how cute you are. We walked away and realized we were stupid for not inviting you to join us. But when we looked back, you were getting into a car with your dog.

You have blonde hair and blue eyes. If you are single, then message me! We both liked you.

I was the tall Caucasian guy with dark hair near the entrance yesterday. I wanted to tell you how hot you were, but just kept walking...

you walked into the elevator as I was stepping out. I was stunned enough to let you in before exiting. you looked gorgeous ..too bad I let the door close on me..would've liked to say hi atleast :P

And the absolute cream of the crop:

You: Around 12:30ish AMm Friday nite, were with 2 girlfriends; you wear wearing white-capri pants; you had shoulder length straight-brown hair, and you totally looked like that actress chick!

Me: I was there by myself, but chatting away with dude at the cashier; navy blue pants, blue-ish pinstripe dress shirt, navy blue blazer; olive complexion handsome Indian dude.

Us: We kept exchanging distant stares, glares, and smiles. ;-)

I hope you see this, if not, oh well, it's worth a shot anyways. I would've broken my shyness and spoken to you, but you know how it is with these thing... (PS - In order to keep the unsolicited creeps from e-mailing me, if you are indeed the right person, do describe to me your two girl friends, because this way, only you & I would know this information correctly, LOL).

I really don't have much to say...I mean, who wouldn't find this creepy? Someone catches your eye for a moment, and instead of a) striking up a conversation like a normal person, or b) leaving them the hell alone, you post personal details about them on a random website in hopes that they will magically see it, respond, become your internet chat friend, and finally marry you.

I want to punch these people in their faces.