Ow.

Being sick is no fun

July 7, 2008: Maybe there really is such a thing as Murphy’s Law. Last week I went to a cousin’s wedding out of state and I missed 2 days of work, thinking I can pull in extra hours this week. And then yesterday, when I was biking over to Borders to join two of my friends in a jogging/walking workout, my throat felt like it was tightening or something. At first I didn’t think anything of it. I could still talk, right?

Well, five minutes into walking (me and Kelly stopped jogging after several minutes, while Edith, ever the athlete, continued down the bikepath as if jogging was like doing a few pushups), swallowing hurt. A lot. As I listened to Kelly talk about what I had missed when I was away, that little pain in my throat grew into a lets-annoy-Tamara pounding. I felt a little better when we reached the university’s horse ranch, because there was a really, really cute baby horse that was nuzzling against us and who wouldn’t feel better if a super cute baby horse was being all cuddly? After feeding it some hay, we continued down the bikepath, and I wondered if Kelly thought it was weird that I was just nodding my head and smiling and saying “oh wow” or “oh my gosh” when neccessary, rather than chipping in like I usually do. I told her about my sore throat, and she said it was probably just the smoke from all the fires in California, and that I would get used to it. She had felt the same thing last weekend, and her grandma had told her that smoke can do that to people. Relieved that it wasn’t some cold bug, we continued on, and now I even joined in with actual sentences.

That is, until we reached Borders again and my throat felt like it needed a tranquilizer. Tommy and Chris joined us for dinner, but I could barely swallow the food from Pluto’s, and so I stuck to my nodding and smiling, which sucked because I hadn’t talked to them in a while and I wanted to know how they’d been. After dinner everyone went to get ice cream, but I figured I should probably head home. After the goodbyes, I got on my bike and, in my foggy state, went in the wrong direction. I realized this once I reached the train station. I doubled back and, after several zig zags through downtown, I somehow made it back home. I thought maybe if I go to sleep early I would wake up refreshed, but instead, here I am, typing on the computer and missing yet another day of work.

As much as I want this to be the smoke like Kelly thought, I think that I have to face the fact it really might be a cold. Bleh. Someone find a cure already!

Beirut’s Pop Princess

Myriam Fares

July 6, 2008: You probably haven’t heard of her, but you’ll be glad you did. A few weeks ago on You Tube, I stumbled across a music video of Shakira singing and dancing to a song called Nadini. As always, her dance moves were enough to make even the most talented dancer jealous. And then it hit me. That wasn’t Shakira’s voice. The lyrics weren’t even in Spanish.. they were in Arabic. I checked the singer’s name, Myriam Fares, and looked up her songs on Project Playlist . It’s no wonder that the prodigy of south Lebanon is famous in the east. The 25 year old has a number of catchy singles, my favorites being Leih Habibi, Shou Baddo Yssir, and Gh’morni. And in music videos like Nadini , La Tes’Alni, and Waheshni Eih, Myriam shows off dance skills worthy of her Cuban counterpart. For people like me who don’t speak a word of Arabic, a site called arabicmusictranlation.com translates her most popular works into English. Once you start her uplifting pop beats and jawdropping videos, you’ll be too mesmerized to pull away.

Second Time’s a Charm

blogging!

July 5, 2008: Yes it’s true! I started a blog Maybe it’s because it is the fourth of July weekend, and all my friends are away visiting their families, while my family is here in Davis and I need something to do. Or maybe it’s because a lot of my friends in Alpha Phi Omega already have a blog of their own, and so I thought I would get in on the action. Whatever the reason, this isn’t my first blog. My first one was started fall quarter, also at WordPress.com, and it lasted for a week. There were three posts, one about pilates and the others about my escapades in Alpha Phi Omega. And then I just seemed too busy to update it. Last week I signed on to my account, wondering if maybe I should add something after a 6 month hiatus, only to find that my posts had disappeared. I’m not sure if this was because I was gone for so long or a highschool student decided to have some fun in between studying for the SATs. And so I decided to start another one. Now that it’s summer, I have more time to update it and add in fun stuff like notes about music and movies. I’m also adding in pictures now to make the blog more colorful. So, while I will definitely miss my first blog, in a way it worked out. Because now I can start fresh with some new ideas. Yay for blogging!