Life in the Fast Lane

Go-karting was once an activity that I would boast as my favorite diversion from work and life, and that I was the champion go-kart racer. Last time I went go-karting, in fact, my fiance Alex saw the competitive side of me, and witnessed me mercilessly running my little brother off the track and then get a warning from the staff. Yea, I'm pretty hardcore. What can I say, I just like to go fast.

Well, forget go-karting. That is child's play after my little rendez-vous in the mountains yesterday afternoon. I had an invite to take a day trip up to Faraya, the popular mountainous area near Beirut with quite a few ski resorts, to go snowmobiling. I usually don't like winter sports, simply because the cold really gets to me, but it was so worth it.

Alex, our friend Ahmad and his cousin Mustafa, and I all rented snowmobiles and took a one hour ride in a beautiful area of snow covered mountains. It took about a minute to figure out the strength of the machine, and how to make it run smoothly. But after that minute it was just one adrenaline rush after another. Of course, out of four people, it was the first time three of us had gone snowmobiling so we had to go with a guide and took a planned course, more or less. But just speeding over the bumpy snow and pushing the snowmobile to the max going up big inclines was enough to impress me. Getting a numb face and frosty toes was definitely worth time and the money. I am really looking forward to skiing and snowboarding, which Alex promises to teach me!

Although I have done so much in the short time that Alex and I have been traveling, between Lebanon, Syria, Europe, I realize that I have so much more to do. For the most part I am working and studying during the week, what I would be doing in America as well. Of course there are benefits to studying in Lebanon, most importantly what I learn about the culture and the language, and so I would never trade this time for anything. But there are so many things that I want to accomplish in my youth.

These things are ordinary as well as extraordinary. Like a lot of people with big dreams I want to have a great career, do something important and contribute to intellectual society, and I want to be risky and maybe skydive someday. But I want to accomplish simple things as well. It would be nice to be able to cook without constantly referring to a cookbook. To be able to dance a waltz, a tango and maybe a bit of modern dance. To sew some of my own work clothes, or concoct whatever bar drink my friends might want. I prefer to think of this ordinary feats as life skills - the things that one should be able to do with ease.

For a large part of my life thus far I have just wanted to excel in one thing. Society stresses talent, or The Talent. As long as I can do one thing really well it doesn't matter if I am inadequate in other areas. I never really found that in myself, and spent too many years being disappointed that I couldn't find that one thing. What I really want is to be able. If you ask me to do something I can do it with no problem, or I can learn whatever skills I need to to accomplish it. I have to host a party? No problem, I know how to cook, decorate and host. My boss wants me to type up a briefing for a meeting? Well I have experience in journalism, editing and different styles of writing, so I think I can handle it. My child needs a costume for his/her school play? Good thing I took sewing lessons when I was younger. You want to hear a nice tune on the piano? Well I dabbled a little, so let me entertain you.

Somehow going snowmobiling got me off on a tangent. I realized how much there was to do in life, which led to what was more important to accomplish and finally what kind of life I thought it was best to lead. There are going to be people who really excel at one thing, or multiple things, in life. Undoubtedly they should put all of their efforts into perfecting their skill. But the life that is filled with a balance of life skills can be just as rewarding, as I am learning everyday.

Moment of Silence for Victims of Bad Hair Cuts

Today will go down in history as a day of mourning…for all those women who have experienced really really bad haircuts. And I don’t mean a bad experience with a hairstylist who has a few unresolved issues, or a few hairs out of place. No! I mean the kind of haircut that stays bad until it grows out, and nothing less than scarves or a wig will make it remotely cute. Will explain later….

So today was possibly the worst day of my life. It rained all day. Within three hours of getting up I knew that it was going to be one of those days where everything was going to try its hardest to go wrong, and I wasn’t in the mood to entertain it.

Rewind to 7 a.m. Alex had a man date today and went out with one of his new coworkers to Faraya, to ski and snowboard a little. We usually spend a bulk of our day apart and I really wanted him to go out with a guy…you know how women can get after a while. He deserved it anyway. I had a busy day ahead of me anyway. I had to finish up college applications, send out more mail than I have in my life, combined, and I wanted to run a few around-the-house errands.

Alex leaves and I get straight to it. By 9 I’m ready to go out and print extra materials for applications, pick and go to a friend’s house to pick up a bank draft they got for us. Well, right about then it starts to rain heavily so I decide not to take the laundry and just wait until a little later. Luckily, however, my friend is almost right outside my apartment and happens to have the bank draft so I forget about the rain and head out to the shop to print.

I ask the owner how much it will be to print and he confirms it will be 200 Lira. Great! Actually, I used the color printer so its five times as much…and the homemade Christmas cards I printed out in color are now six times more than if I would have just bought hallmark ones. Oh well. At least I had all my college materials.

I’m heading back to the apartment and I realize that almost five minutes after stepping out it had stopped raining, and now I would have to make the trip again when I brought my laundry…and I had soooo much to do!

Trying to be really optimistic, I finally made it home. By that time I was really frustrated because I had to deal with really careless people on the sidewalk. I tried to not think about it, and I was bound and determined to get my stuff done. But it was just one thing after another. First the webpage I needed to get one wasn’t loading…then the computer froze at least four times while I was trying to access Seton Hall’s website…then we had a blackout and our internet connection was out (this happens everyday and our internet goes out for hours at a time). Not to mention me running into things, dropping things and just having to run up and down the stairs every time I forgot something in the room.

I made my way downstairs to use the wireless, which worked for a while….until our server went down and then I couldn’t get any of the college addresses I needed. AND I had no one to complain to because Alex was gone…so I took it out on the door.

Finally I reconnected and did speed addressing to get it to the post office by 2 in the afternoon – the time I was told that LibanPost closes. Now I know they close at 1…so I didn’t accomplish that.

I had brought my laundry with me because it was kind of on the way, so I dropped that off. Pretty painless. Here comes the good part. I decided to get my hair cut because I had been wanting to for a while and I finally saw a salon for women (usually I only see salons for men).

I should have known when I walked in and there were only two old women there. I should’ve know…but anyone can say that afterward. But I waited for half and hour anyway to get my hair cut by a man. I showed him a picture of what I wanted. He didn’t speak much English and I didn’t know how to tell him in Arabic exactly what I wanted, so I just pointed it out. I figured he couldn’t mess that up.

Well thirty minutes later, when the cut was only halfway done, I remember thinking that it wasn’t going how I thought it would but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. By then I couldn’t concentrate on the book I was reading because I wanted to see how my hair was progressing. By the end, I was almost in tears. It looked nothing like the picture and is the WORST haircut I’ve ever had. I don’t even know if a stylist could fix this because it’s a little shorter than medium length. And yes, my friends, I cried a bit over my hair. I know, I know it’ll grow out but it just sucks. It’s going to take a couple months to get to the length that it was and I hate having to worry about my hair. All the self-conscious thoughts that I suppress every day had a chance to scream out.

I wore a hood home, and as soon as I could I got on the internet to see if anyone had any advice on how to cover up badddd haircuts. There was nothing that I couldn’t figure out myself, but interestingly one girl had a story uncannily similar to mine. The way she described her awesomely bad haircut sounded exactly how mine did. More importantly her blog entry was dated the same as today, just a few years back. It was an intense moment…so I decided that today was to be the official Bad Haircut Day, where everyone who has experienced it puts a little time aside for remembrance…to remember what its like to be plagued with a bad bad bad haircut.

And this is why I’m taking time from finishing college application essays and blogging. I’m going to be fine, but I just wanted to share my traumatic story with those who may benefit from it. Well actually, it probably more likely because it’s after five and Alex still isn’t home.

To make a long story short, what was supposed to be my most productive day turned out to feel like the least productive….and it’s still raining.