HashtagFirstWorldProblems: Reading a book you just can't seem to finish

Has this ever happened to you? Surely it has. It must happen to everyone (cough cough in a first world conundrum like me). I'm reading For Whom the Bell Tolls. This is attempt number 3, if I remember correctly. My Kindle tells me I'm 41% through. My brain tells me I have 41% of my sanity left. But I want to finish it. I don't want to give up. It's a phase, you see. There came a time when I decided life was too short to trawl through a book I didn't enjoy. But recently I just don't want to put a book down. I don't think it helps that I keep a very public record of the books I read here. Damn it I've been reading this book since June..I can mark a little asterisk to say I never finished it. But that may will compromise my credibility as a book nerd.

Get it here.

First.

World.

Problem.

In other news, I have written my post about Bath but it has like 2951523 photos. Tell me, do you like looking at photos or should I go back to the editing table?

Happy Saturday everyone! 

Sx

What it's come to...

Guys. It's not been an easy 3 weeks. Not gonna lie. For starters, I've been waging a full fledged war against Orange (our internet providers) since Easter. Just thinking about it makes my blood boil. So let's move on.

Secondly, we ran out of diesel, which we use to heat our water so that we can have lovely warm showers. Before we ran out of diesel, we used a power heater to heat the water whilst showering. Unfortunately, after several showers wondering "what is that horrible burning smell?" we realised it had caused an electric short. I guess we should've guessed there was something dodgy when every time you switched on the power heater the lights in the bathroom dimmed. Hindsight and all that jazz.

After calling several diesel providers and being told that they wouldn't come to our house for anything less than 1000 litres of diesel (which translates to about 700 JD) I was thinking, well showering using a bucket and cup isn't so bad after all. However, one of the diesel providers told me that, given the fact that I wanted [only] about 100 litres of diesel, my best bet would be to take a gallon tank and head over to the petrol station to fill up on diesel.

So, one of my colleagues kindly accepted was bribed into helping me out with going to the petrol station to fill up diesel, bring it back to our building and emptying it into our diesel tank.

We only managed to find a few stray water bottles in our house but the guys at the Total petrol station were kind enough to give us a couple of 5 litre bottles to help us out. Diesel, meet transportation containers:

I was worried that it wouldn't be efficient using a lot of smaller bottles instead of a large gallon tank but it's lucky that we didn't find a gallon tank because there would have been no space to empty it out due to the short ceilings in the diesel tank room. Silver lining.

Formidable Salim.

We made three trips and managed to fill up about 75 litres of diesel, which isn't much, I know, but we're hoping it'll last us until we have to move out.

I tell you, you learn the funniest things if you are just willing get your hands a little dirty [diesel-y].

Sx

Will the third time be a charm?

I think the Universe doesn't want me to visit the Citadel. Together with the Roman Ampitheatre in downtown, they are the symbols of Amman. And I have yet to set foot within those Roman defense walls.

The first time I tried to visit the Citadel, the weather was a bit like this:

Needless to say, they weren't letting anyone in.

The weather has been brightening up here in Amman, so this past Friday, I was determined to be a tourist in Amman and planned to finally visit this monument and test out my new camera. Taking the tourist thing quite seriously, we stopped off at Hashem for some falafel sandwiches. Shamefully, this was another first for me in Amman. I enjoyed the sandwiches, but I think my favourite falafel spot remains Al Quds in Rainbow Street.

I digress.

We finally managed to walk up the "hill" (why people keep insisting that mountains are hills, is beyond me) to the Citadel entrance...only to find this:

Being a Friday, the ticket office had closed at 4pm, 50 minutes before we got there *palm face*.

I'm hoping that my third time will indeed be a charm and I'll get to finally see the Citadel up close and personal. Until then, here are some photos Louis and I took. I got a little excited about the different filters haha.

Sx

Well done Coca-Cola

Guys. I have to hand it to Coca-Cola for designing a Saba-proof can. So the other day we were in the supermarket and I was craaaaving a coke like crazy. So I got one. After we got home and had unpacked the shopping, I thought to myself (oh so smartly)

"I'm gonna stick this can in the freezer so that by the time I'm done changing into my pjs it'll be nice and ice cold" (yes, I was gonna drink coke before bed. I'm an adult thankyouverymuch)

Aaanyway. 

Two days later, I open the freezer to fish out ice-cream or some other health damaging pre-bed snack when I noticed the can....

Louis, what I feel is correctly, commented that Coca-Cola must've paid someone to test this, figuring there would be some idiot in the world who would forget a coke can in the freezer.

We were too afraid to leave it anywhere where it could do more harm, ie anywhere I would have any say over where I could interact with it, so we wrapped it in a bag and stuck it in a bucket in the spare bathroom.

Lo and behold the next morning it was in tact and on it's way back to being a liquid. After I got home from work I decided, ooooo I'd really like that Coke now...but it was warm by that point. Sooooo, I put it back...

...in the fridge (have *some* faith in me people!) but then forgot about it for another two days.*

However, when I did eventually sit down to drink my coke, not only was it cold, it was surprisingly still fizzy.

Well done Coca-Cola. Well done.

Sx

*my memory is comparable to that of a gold fish, and the only way I manage to hold down an admin job is to carry around a notebook at work and write down every-single-thing-in-the-world.

New Glasses!!

I went for an eye test the other day. The results were shocking really. My eyesight had not changed since my last eye test in 2011. Not.a.single.bit.

In my 16+ years of wearing glasses, every single time I went for an eye test, the results showed my eyesight getting worse. Year. After year. After year. After year. It's a wonder I don't wear some form of binoculars really. You get the picture. Except for one year, when my eyesight actually got BETTER. Apparently that can happen. 

The thing is, every time I tell people that I've been wearing contacts for 15+ years (cuz I hate my glasses and avoid wearing them in public), they're always like "get LASIK!". And my reply is....uuuuuuhhh no. I'm terrified you see. I don't quite know why, but I know that I'm terrified. Also, I had heard that your eyesight needed to be stable for 2 years before going under the beam, and well, that had never happened until now.

And sometimes I wonder whether I've probably spent more money over 15 years on contacts then I would have doing corrective eye surgery. But the other night, I decided to calculate it. 

Thus. If I spend approximately £20 a month on contacts then:

£20x12 = £240x15 = £3600

And, frankly, £3600 is less than, say, two Chanel handbags. Which makes me feel a lot better that, no, I have not spent a small fortune on contact lenses. In fact, if you only count the two years that I have not had a change in eyesight (which is not accurate because you'd have to wait two years before surgery) then you'd get:

£20x24 months = £480.

No one's gonna fix my eyes for that little (and if they could, I'm not sure I'd want them to!). 

So Lasik, you'll have to wait. 

Sx

These are my new frames that I get to pick up from the opticians soon (selfies are not our friend).

Worth 1000 Words

Wednesday, September 18: Only photos

Words to Yourself

Monday, September 16: Write a public love letter to someone in your life. (It doesn't necessarily need to be romantic.)

 

Copyright.

Dear Me,

I'm writing you this letter to tell you how much I love you. I know, it may sound crazy and narcissistic, but it seems that you forget to tell yourself those three words.

Why do I love you? Well, believe it or not, you're brave. Not many people would be able to leave their entire family and move to a different country at the age of 18. Not many people would then leave a country they loved to start a new life in the middle of the desert. So, you're pretty brave. It'd do you good to remember that every once in a while! 

Also, I love you because you are always trying to learn new things. And it kinda peeves me when you beat yourself up about not "getting things" straight away. I mean, remember when you started your first job and you'd never used Outlook but ta-dah! you managed? And now you're giving your colleagues tips about sharing calendars! How about figuring out eyelash curlers?! You were like "whaaaa?? WHAAA?" but BOOM, luscious lashes were achieved! Not just that, how about the fact that you've been trying to push your boundaries? I mean, you started a blog. You're doing a blog challenge. And even if there are days when you doubt your ability to continue, you push yourself and then realise that it's totally do-able.

I love you because you try to be a good friend. Now, I know that you're not always great at keeping in touch and you say you'll message but then you don't. But, ever since you had a pen-pal in 1st Grade, you have always made an effort to check-in with your friends every once in a while. Not many 11 year old children send snail mail to their friends in Canada for several consecutive years. But you did, and you even sent stickers with some of those letters too! 

I won't keep going about all this mushy mushy love. But I'll leave you with this: put in some time to remember all of your great qualities and create more positive energy for yourself. Being good to ourselves is just as important as being good to others. And I think that it's almost needed as a foundation to be able to support the love that you then give to others. 

Like scaffolding against a building. 

Love,

Me.

Death by ice cream

Friday, September 6: A story about a time you were very afraid.

Found here.

Funnily enough, this prompt was a little tricky, considering I am one big COWARD. After thinking for two days, this is the story I am going to share. 

During the summer of 1992, my parents, younger brother and I went to America to visit my oldest brother. I was 7 at the time, or I'd just turned 8, can't quite remember. Because it was summer and we were on holiday, we were allowed to eat quite a lot of ice-cream. Usually home made ice cream cones like the ones in the photo :) Sadly, on one of those days, I overdid it. 

I didn't realise I'd overdone it until we went out for a walk along the Reflection Pool near the Washington Memorial and I became very, very, very thirsty. So thirsty that I convinced myself that I was dying from over eating ice cream. There were water fountains every few meters or so, and I would run to them, guzzle water, then run back to my family, only to be thirsty again by the time I reached them. 

I was terrified. What was this unheard of disease that attacked young, albeit ice cream greedy, girls?! I really do remember telling my parents that it was the end, that I was dying because my thirst could not be quenched.

Of course I was fine but there you go. 

Sx

Laughing at Yourself

I'd bought a punnet of cherries. Cherries here are really yummy (come from Lebanon) and I loooooove cherries.

So Louis and I are eating like, millions of cherries, watching the office. Gobble, gobble.

I'm also writing down things that Louis and I need to do for our holiday plans.

"Louis, tomorrow you need to do XYZ.."

"Saba, I'm not very good at doing XYZ..." *innocent eyes*

*scowl*

"Well, LOUIS, I'm not very good at foresight or thinking for myself or any of that stuff!! Do you like it when I tell you that?! Do you? That's no excuse!!"

*grinning*

"Saba, you need to go to the mirror and make that same speech in front of the mirror!!!!!!!!!!!"

*SCOWL*

"What?! You think this is funny??!!"

"Please please just go to the mirror and make this exact same speech" *hysterically laughing*

So I relent and sneak up to the mirror (because by this time I am terrified of what my face looks like).

And then literally die of laughter.

That's what eating a trillion cherries does to your teeth!!*

Sx 

*After brushing a couple of times my teeth were back to normal. THANK GOD! Work would've been interesting otherwise!