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Doha to Paris
We returned from South Africa to an apartment whose floors were littered with all the crap we’ve accumulated over the past two years. After a week of head-scratching, we managed to fit everything into 3 trunks to be shipped, 4 luggages to check in, two backpacks and two laptop cases to carry with us on…
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Appreciation
A list of things that have pissed me off recently: 1. Crazy drivers in their 4×4s who flash you, tail you, and cut you off at roundabouts. Imagine this. One afternoon you decide to go to the mall (because other than that, there’s not much to do here) and the street is practically empty. Suddenly a…
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Hide and Seek
The earth beneath my feet is turning either very, very slowly or unbelievably fast, depending on my mood and the time of the day. Ramadan is over. Hanim’s family invited us over to celebrate Eid, and it really felt like a holiday compared to last year’s Eid, where we just stayed home and savoured a day…
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Golden Slumbers
If you think that there’d be less cars on the road during Ramadan, you are sorely mistaken. From 8h to 14h, the streets are clogged with impatient, thirsty, fasting commuters. It’s madness! But during the daytime, between 15h up until 19h, the streets are unusually quiet. Since the risk of getting run over at this…
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Ramadan in a Few Weeks
The future: Ramadan in a few weeks Anticipated Scenario: Closed stores, boredom, traffic, getting drunk in the living room Work: One million of them, unfinished –> Flash: Uncooperative Actionscript –> Flash: Difficulty (impossibility?) in making buttons nested in movie clips to link to an .swf target in the same scene (despair) –> Errors due to…
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Geography
I find it interesting that world maps are hard to come by in stores here in Qatar. After combing the shelves of Carrefour (all three branches), Villagio, and that little bookstore on the 3rd floor of City Center, I decide to go to Jarir Bookstore along Salwa Road. I ask the guy for a world…
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You Think You Can Do These Things But…
Fucking hell, talk about itchy fingers! Four months after my attempt to give myself a haircut (and failing miserably: my hair is still uneven by 2 inches on one side), here I am again, fighting the urge to chop my hair off. I was mumbling about my desire to give myself another haircut an hour ago, then…
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Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here
Last week, the tiles on the kitchen floor started to swell, as if an octopus was lurking underneath, trying to get out. Then followed a strange sound, and suddenly the cement holding the tiles together started to crumble. Ah, construction in Qatar. At first glance everything looks ok, but the truth is that buildings here,…