A very long Sunday

8:55 AM – Wake up after half an hour of snoozing my alarm.

9:25 AM – Head to the door, sulking cuz it’s impossible to find a cab in Ramadan and I’m gonna be late for work (officially at 9:30 AM) only to find my brother at the front door and he offers me a ride to work

9:35 AM – Arrive at work, decide to visit the ATM machine downstairs first, wait in line, finally its my turn..machine rejects my card for security reasons…ponder sarcastically about the ridiculous UAE bank fraud recently.

9:45 AM – Up in the office, read emails and make a list of today’s to do list. A number of critical things on the list, 2 of which have to be done before 12 PM – one is hand delivering a pitch document for potential client HA and the other is chasing for an ad approval due today to the media, which the real estate client BY still has not decided on the image to be used.

10:15 AM – Email client BY to remind them that the special Eid ad they want is due today to the newspapers and they need to decide on the artwork ASAP cuz we still need to buy the stock image they choose! Sent the same client 3 emails for other urgent, pending print jobs that need to be finalized in the next 24 hrs. Wonder who the hell scheduled Cityscape Dubai the week right after Eid holiday; definitely someone who didn’t think about all these critical print & production deadlines.

10:30 AM – Print and bind pitch presentation for client HA and collect A3 creative printouts.

11:00 AM – Say bye to office boy whose leaving for good to India. He begs me for the millionth time to find a job for his son who is a graphic designer…poor guy.

11:30 AM – Taxi stand. 4 people before me. Midday heat. Wonder if I’ll make it by the 12 PM deadline.

Highlight of the day: Indian lady at taxi stop offers me to stand under her umbrella. I say no its ok thanx but she insists and comes and stands next to me with her umbrella. Random acts of kindness make me smile

12:30 PM – Back to office. Edits to the pending items for clients BY. Still no word on the Eid ad. SMS boss whose at a meeting to chase the top guy at client BY for a decision.

1:00 PM – Finally, approval for the Eid ad. Instructions to studio manager to buy the image IMMEDIATELY to make the newspapers deadline. Convince him to ignore the finance paperwork for the moment due to urgency.

2:00 PM – Eid ad still stuck in my outbox…IT problems when you least need them :@

2:30 PM – Eid ad left outbox to media. Work with graphic designer on banners, glass door wraps, and other exhibition space bought for Gitex for client T. I’m liking this particular campaign.

3:00 PM – More back on forth on edits for other pending items for client BY.

4:00 PM – Brochures for BY approved. Put on FTP for urgent transfer to Dubai where they will be finalized and printed. FTP down. Try random big file sharing websites. Should have been home by now.

4:30 PM – Update estimates and invoices list and leave those for tommorow.

5:00 PM – Files still not going through to Dubai. Decide to go home and upload files from there.

5:20 PM – Walk through the door, mum’s tense preparing Iftar and ma3joo2a bekhayalha and needs help. Great, what I needed Set the table quickly. Promise to help more later. Rush to room and switch on laptop.

6:10 PM – first file sent. Second file transferring slowly.

6:15 PM – Iftar time. Eating and going back and forth to room to check on file transfer status..extremely slow. Try other file transfer website.

7:00 PM – Progress unlikely on this website. Find another website and hope it works. Back to dining table. Take a few bites. Back to laptop.

8:00:00 PM – ATLAAAASST. Files sent. Back to dining table, continue my meal which is now cold.

8:25 PM – Take a deep breathe and collapse on the sofa for a while.

A little goes a long way

Saw this in the Abu Dhabi Mall; totally stood out from the clutter. Never saw a huge Dhirham before, its so adorable

Funky Donation Box!

Young and Arab in Land of Mosques and Bars

A disco in Dubai exemplifies the emirate's moderating influences.

I read an article today in the New York Times about the lives of young Muslims in Dubai, which is part of a series of articles called Generation Faithful about the lives of youth across the Muslim world.

The writer hits the nail on the head about many different aspects of the lives of many young expats who come to Dubai seeking a better job and a better life. He interviews young men about how living here has affected the way they view life and more important, how it has affected their values and identity as individuals and as Muslims.

He makes an interesting claim saying that people in Dubai have no unified identity or culture; their main commonality is their ambition. This is a common point that comes up in conversation all the time when we speak about life here in the UAE. There are alot of things that we love about living here, which happen to be the same things we hate sometimes – living among different cultures, the fast pace of life, the exciting developments, the wonders of Dubai (the snow in the desert, the Palm, the tallest, the biggest, etc), the individualism, the ‘here for the money’ attitude, the ‘good life’, the contagious materialism and many other aspects of living here. Alot of people feel deep inside that they have lost their soul somewhere because of these aspects and many do not have a clear understanding of their true identity anymore; which like Dubai’s identity, is ever-changing and not constant. I think these youth in question mirror this city they live in as it struggles to find its perfect identity while trying to be modern and cosmopolitan but by also trying to not stray away from its (rather conservative UAE) traditions and Islamic roots.

Anyways, below are my favorite quotes from the article:

• Some speculate that Dubai is like Vienna during the cold war, a playground for all sides.

• Dubai dazzles, but it also confuses.

• There is talk of a new hotel, the biggest yet in Dubai, that will cool the hot sand for its guests.

• Mr. Abu Zanad raised his beer high, almost in a toast, and said he liked being able to walk through a mall and still hear the call to prayer.

• Dubai has everything money can buy, but it does not have a unifying culture or identity. The only common thread is ambition.

And finally:

• “This is Dubai: go to the mosque, it is full. Then go to the disco, it’s also full!” – Abdel Hamid al Agha

Styling Heritage

Brownbook (Sept-Oct) cover

I’m loving the fashion shoot from Brownbook’s latest issue, the Ramadan special ‘Styling Heritage’. Love the very hip modern urban Emarati styling – very much like what Brownbook is.

Check out the behind the scenes from this shoot.

Looking back…

…you were as cheap and sleazy as that petrol station rose you gave me.

Virtual living

“Facebook is the dorm; Wikipedia is the library; and Craigslist is the mall. One’s for socializing; one’s for studying; one’s for trading.” – Nicholas Carr

I saw this quote on And Far Away, so true for facebook and wikipedia. The mall was souq.com for a while but now its etsy.com for me.

Trying to get rid of my gladiator tan

Gladiator flats

Living in the UAE in the hot summer months is not so much fun…it is extremely hot and can be humid. It’s worse when you end up waiting for cabs for upto half an hour (in Ramadan yes it takes that long) in the heat, under the sun.

I recently discovered I have a gladiator foot tan from wearing gladiator flats in the heat too many times! My feet have marks that look like grill marks/spider marks (my gladiators are slightly different from picture shown). I’ve had flip flop and ballet shoes tans before but those were ok cuz theyre not as odd as the gladiator tan :s

I have a bank account in Dubai?!?!

I was watching the long-awaited first episode of season 4 of Prison Break the other day and I had a ’say that again?’ moment when agent Gretchen was about to be shot by another agent. She begged him not to kill her, she told him I have a bank account in Dubai from the xyz mission..its all yours just don’t kill me.

Is that a lame attempt at a ‘product’ placement for Dubai? Cuz if you ask me, it only makes Dubai look like a haven for money laundry/fraud, etc (think of all those suspicious bank accounts in Switzerland)

They could have also used Dubai bcuz Dubai is actually quite a buzz world right now in Hollywood and everyone wants to mention the D word…I mean even Paris Hilton knows about Dubai now.

Hating the construction site in my mouth :@

I spent all evening trying to get an urgent dentist appointment, I called SIX different doctors, even the ones from the dodgy alwaseet ads but they were all fully booked :@ Ive never cried from dental pain before :’( I am dyyyyyyiiing here…it feels like a %#&*%$$ construction site in my mouth :@ and I didnt and will not have any painkillers today :s

A few days back I realized that the gum around one of my wisdom teeth that’s growing is slightly inflamed…and I decided to ignore it cuz it will heal by itself…as my wisdom teeth grow for a week and then they stop for a month or so and then i get another terrible headache week and then nothing and so on.

Three days later (yesterday) and the inflammation got worse and the mind-boggling headaches were really bad. After a couple of doses of painkillers (which barely helped) that messed up my stomach and gave me a terrible heartburn so i took a pill for the heartburn. It was now around 11 pm and I didn’t feel better (teeth or stomach) so I decided to have some tea…which I think made the heartburn worse…I should have had camomile instead. Anyways it was 1 AM and I had to sleep (work next day) but I couldn’t sleep becuz of the wonderful mix of chemicals I had…I was very nauseous…my head was gonna explode and I was wide awake cuz of the tea

After falling asleep at like 5 AM and waking up again for work at 8:30 AM..I was a total mess today..extremely weak and shaky and neither the heartburn or the tooth got better…they both got worse all day and until now :’(

ZUMMO Juice!

I had my first Ramadan craving today..I felt like drinking some freshly squeezed OJ. Then I remembered Zummo, the fresh OJ vending machine back from the cafeteria at university, that i was sooo fascinated by. Most of the time I bought a cup of OJ just to watch the Zummo live show!

The Zummo machine takes you through the automated juicing process, from cutting the oranges to squeezing them and pouring the juice to your cup, all in less than a minute and in front of your eyes!

Check out the Zummo Vending machine video from Youtube (well I actually taped the process on video but I dnow where that file is now):

They also have other sexier models of the juicer. See the below video as well:

Highly entertaining…these videos made my day (well I was really thirsty and I have a thing for vending machines and for automated conveyor belt processes…take me to a factory any day…I’d love to go to Willy Wonka’s factory one day….yummm)