It was my first time ever taking a part in such an event, and I have to say that the end result: I was pleased and proud. I looked my previously ultimate challeng in the eye and took it head on, and managed to turn my mess ups into comic relief! Although I want to remember every single detail about being master of ceremonies, I’m not sure if I can write about it in a way that will contain everything I felt. So I’m going to leave this little experience to myself, and the close friends I shared it with.

In other news, I have some new old gloves! Two additional pairs of super summer grippers in both pink and purpe (I perviously had purple but they are turning black / gray after heavy usage).

A while ago, I mentioned that I was looking to purchase a new mobile phone after the sounds of my old pink Sony Ericsson have gone completely bonkers over the past two years. In the end, I got the Nokia 7610 Supernova with the white front and purple back cover. It uses those Nokia Xpress covers (although there is nothing “express” about them). The fact that it is white & purple reminds me of my first mobile phone ever. It a very old Nokia that used Xpress covers as well. I originally had pink for it but eventually got white & purple as shown in the picture. But that was years ago, I think I was in middle school or high school when I had it.

Anyway, I really like my new phone. It took me about 5 minutes of use to decide that I liked it when it took me a few weeks to decide that I liked my old Sony Ericsson. Everything sounds so much better on it, and it even has a radio! I quickly saved my regular ring tone (Steel Samurai from Phoenix Wright) on it and changed the theme to suit my taste. My current theme is called Spring and it changes colours based on the time of day. It is very pink in the early afternoon but when it gets darker it starts to turn purple and then blue to signify that it’s time to sleep. The early morning is more green.

However, it is not a very friendly phone!! It often tells me that something I am trying to do is “not allowed”. Apparently that happens when a call is about to come and I am about to call someone else. The Mp3 player button is out on the side and I keep clicking it by accident and it starts to play out whatever mp3s I have. And, like my old phone, I have to open the back cover to change the phone strap (my favourite hobby), it’s what it says in the manuel but that is SO hard to do! I have to fight with it to do it and I’m not looking forward to doing it anytime soon. The sales associate that sold it to me was making fun of me for even asking about a strap thing saying, “You want phones JUST to hang straps on?”. What am I going to do with my collection of straps then? Hang them on a board and look at them? If I wish to have a phone that has a place for straps… that’s up to me, the customer, isn’t it?

Here are some visuals of the pretty new phone. These pictures were taken when it was still “brand new”. It already earned some scratches on the front screen and I feel sooo bad for it…

A strange occurance took place yesterday (starting the day before) and it made me realize that the human mind is able to percieve so much more than it actually knows. There really is no other way for me to explain this, unless I could just write it off as a coincedence; which really is not fun! The other day, I got home from class with a nagging feeling in my chest. Something was bothering me, something was missing and I could not quite put my finger on it. As a person not really in touch with my emotions, I thought that perhaps I was nervous about my presentation the next day – that I did not feel prepared. That I did not feel my group was prepared or even cared enough to prepare (but that’s another story). However, that night I had a dream. It did not make sense to me at the time but it revolved around the idea that I was confused, for some reason I did not know what the day or date was. Everything became chaotic for me because of that. The next morning as I looked through my things to see if I had everything and finally realized what wasn’t there. My agenda.

Thankfully, a classmate saw that it was left behind. She recognized that it belonged to one of us but was not sure who. I won’t see her till Sunday but I was glad that it wasn’t totally lost. I took it out of my bag in class to jot down some deadlines but I guess I forgot to put it back in. What really mistified me was: did I, on some level, know that I didn’t have my agenda? Does anyone even think this is possible?

When I was talking to the classmates I did see that day and telling them about the agenda being missing and asking if anyone had seen it, we got to talking about why I use an agenda anyway. They wondered if I started doing this in college. I didn’t have an actual agenda in my first few college years but I’ve always had a little notebook that I wrote down deadlines in. I told them that in highschool, I had an agenda that I used to remind myself of homework and such. But that was not the total truth (and I only remembered this later). When I was in the third or fourth grade, the school I went to distributed its own stationery, notebooks and so on. With all that mix they also had customized agendas that they made the students use. I don’t know if I was just too afraid to be yelled at or what, but I do recall that it was when I started using “agenda-types” religiously. However, it wasn’t till a few years ago that I started using actual agendas to note down more than just homework.

It might have helped me organize but now that it’s missing I keep worrying that I might have an appointment or something! Maybe having an agenda killed my imagination, and my ability to remember things! When I was a child, I used to imagine the days like they are on a calendar except they were more like film strip passing by. The background was dark beige. School days were light beige, and weekdays were grayish beige. Not very imaginative, huh…

This is a cake that my cousin brought over when she came by some weeks ago. Unfortunately, I never managed to try it. Isn’t the decoration cute, though?

Here are a few things I learned or realized in the past few days (since I can’t seem to remember what I wanted to blog about every time I find myself faced with this page):

• Secretly, I still yearn for figure skating. I currently do not have a coach but I am expecting a pair of skates.


• My ability to talk – to present – confidently with a smile on my face has drasticaly improved, even if I am just spewing out random trash that means nothing to me.


• My diet is ruined. Ruined ruind ruined! I’m not accepting any candy from my classmates again, ever!

Last week, I had my very first stable management class. We were supposed to have these a long time ago but my regular riding place doesn’t really offer them. Although I already knew how to tack up (asked my trainer to show me a few months into my lessons), had a groom show me how to use the brushes and normally tried to hose down the horses I ride and graze them after I was doing riding – it was still a lesson that I got really excited about!

The mare I was paired with was enjoying a nice meal. When she saw me coming at her with a halter & lead rope she actually got quite upset thinking she was going to be taken away from her yummy hay into a boring lesson. When she realized that she was not going to be taken anywhere, she started to relax as she continued munching on her meal. This made me realize that this is why I would want horses of my own one day. To take care of them and just bond with them, not purely for riding. I found spending time with that little mare very soothing. When I saw horse owners taking care of their own horses, bringing them their feed, tacking and untacking, picking out their hoofs, it made me feel very happy and I felt that those people were lucky.

This is the last comic book I read & enjoyed. The Phoenix Wright Case Files – all fanwork. It was a very interesting read. Made me nostalgic towards the games! I hear there’s an Edgeworth version coming out in February.

My calves seem to have quickly inflated into a lump of muscle after just a few weeks of riding in the weekend. And for the record, I don’t practice any other sport. Take that you people out there that think horse riding is just sitting on a horse letting it do all the work! The horses I ride in my riding school don’t even want to do any work, but they’re very smart and invent new and unique ways to get out of working!

Some weeks ago, after dropping off the kids at school and roaming around Burjman one morning, my mother brought up something about a mall that is under Wafi City. It seemed like it was some kind of urban legend. A mall UNDER a mall? But we headed towards the main Wafi entrance, and there it was, an escalator going down on our left. The name of this mall does not come to mind right (Something and Marjan?) but it is very Arabian styled, and all the shops down there are themed. We could have abayas and morrocan dresses made, order some confectionary for special occasions or get our hair done! I’m also pretty sure a large billboard picture of this place is put together on one of the outer walls of Wafi … and I never realized what it was. Here are some pictures from that day, enjoy!

Now that I have a good idea about the type of work I am going to have to do in the morning, I think I can peacefully go to sleep. It’s early but I do feel a cold coming on and I hope it’s not what my siblings have had for the past week. I can’t afford to get sick now, not with my mid-semester deadlines, the conference and my French final exam coming up. And definitely not while the weather is this nice!

This morning I had some carrot cake while getting my hair done. It was my first time ever having this cake. It was much better than I’d imagined. I’m really glad it wasn’t that sweet as the day would have turned out really differently if that was the first thing I had in the morning. It almost makes me want to find some recipes and try this myself.

Sometime ago my cousin, whom I hadn’t seen for years, took the time to bring over some muffins and biscuits that she baked. She used to enjoy baking ever since we were kids, and I was glad to learn that she is still going strong. I remember that once she came over with some cake that she baked… but it was a whole mess of colours from the inside. It was the coolest thing!