Hi Dad, Hi Mom!

I'm famous!

Well, okay, as close to famous as I can get.

Ri, The Music Savvy Mom, asked me for my shuffle! Ri has this nifty little (soon-to-be-huge) blog where she asks moms, procreators, or non-procreators (like yours truly) to set their iPods on shuffle then share the top 10 songs that come out.
When she asked me for mine, I was honored, and thrilled. Why not bless the world with a few selections of my enthralling taste in music? (Oh be quiet)

Y'all be sure to check her out and leave some comments. She's hilarious and insanely sweet.

Okay, reason #2 why I'm famous (who'da thought, ey? I have two reasons)

I got an award! From this lovely gal right here, Laila.

So, in the spirit of receiving this award, I'm supposed to list 10 things about myself. So here goes:

1. I have a terrible fear of crickets. That's why 'cricket' is one of my curse words. When something bad happens I yell, "Cricket!" You know what the problem is, with crickets? You just can't kill them. They always hop around like deranged lunatics whenever you attack them with a tissue box. So your only solution is bug spray. The problem is, I'm too scared to use that on them. I visualize a wheezing cricket, on the verge of dying, antennas wiggling – and I just know he's using those impossibly long antennas of his to communicate with his army of crickets, which will come harass me in order to avenge their lost brother. So I put the bug spray down and scream until someone rescues me. Except that never works, because usually a darling member of my family ends up squishing the cricket in a tissue and chasing me around the house with it.

2. You know that expression, "Your eyes were bigger than your stomach?" Yeh, that's never happened to me. I have quite the stomach, you see. I eat, a lot. If it weren't for my abnormal metabolism and my stick-thin father's genes swimming around in my body, I would never find a door that I'd fit through.

3. I'm very easily amused. Once I spent 30 minutes looking outside a window, chuckling at this newspaper that was being tossed around by the wind. That's why I laugh at the lamest jokes, including mine. When I'm bored I just have a little stand-up comedy skit in my head.

4. I am frighteningly lazy. I once watched two Spy Kids movies in a row because I was too lazy to extend my arm a few inches and reach out for the TV remote.

5. Building on #4, I suppose, I am, as the name of my blog so subtly suggests - a pathological procrastinator. The most repeated word in my vocabulary is probably: "Nyahhh... Later." This year, for example, I can count - on my hands, without having to take off my shoes and socks - the number of times I did my homework at home. I just copied it off people in the morning or during recess or crossed my fingers and hoped the teacher would forget about it.

6. I have a very strong aversion to physics. I hate that subject with a passion. A lot of things in physics don't make sense to me. And since my teacher never quenched my undying curiosity, I started hating the subject even more. Whenever I asked her a perfectly logical question, she took it as a personal offense - like I was challenging her authority or being blasphemous towards the holiness of Sir Newton the Fart. She's mastered the art of making students feel like the stupidest people on earth whenever they ask a question, while simultaneously managing not to answer their questions.

7. I like being nice to strangers. I smile at them if I notice them rudely staring, or I compliment them. I was once at this hair salon and I saw two sisters arguing – I assumed they were sisters, since they were bickering in that professional way only sisters can master. One of them was short and a bit chubby, the other one was tall, thin, and possibly beautiful if only she didn't look like someone had stuck dung underneath her nose and forced her to smell it. Dung Sister was getting married (she was wearing a white wedding dress), and she was giving her sister a hard time about something very mundane. Dung Sister stormed off and Poor Sister looked like she was about to cry. I piped up, "Sorry for asking, I'm just really curious – was that your sister?" The woman looked shocked, "Yes… How did you know?" I shrugged, "She looks like you… But you're prettier." And then I watched her face glow in a very pretty way indeed, and that still makes me feel good.

8. I have Futurephobia. Sometimes I get so worried thinking about things like majors and colleges that this dread fills me inside and the room feels very very warm until I calm myself down.

9. I still watch Barney. If I stumble upon it on TV, I'll watch it. And my 7-year-old sister will say, "Ewww Barney's for babies!" And I'll tell her wetting beds is also for babies. Then she'll shut up.

10. ……… I have a sticker book.

And in the spirit of receiving this award, I must pass it on to 5 bloggers. So the torch goes to...

An Experiment in Poverty

Desperate in Dubai

Something Like That

A "Cheery" Disposition

The Adventures of Rose Red

Take care, folks.

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The Worst Keep-in-Toucher

Something very strange is happening to me.

See, I've always been lazy. I don't know if I'm a procrastinator because I'm lazy, or I'm lazy because I'm a procrastinator……
Chicken before the egg or egg before the chicken, whatever - It's all the same.

The chicken is there and the egg is there.

I am lazy and I am a procrastinator.

But as of recently, this laziness has doubled, tripled, and multiplied at the rate of a pregnant rabbit on steroids…
To the point where I've morphed into a hermit.

I have people leaving me wall posts and messages on Facebook, pissed off at me for "never replying."

I have messages on my phone that I've never replied to, and some that I have, but only after a day or two (or three, or four, or five).

I have friends pleading with me to go out, but I never yield to their demands, because I don't feel like going out.
(Although I did go to Bahrain yesterday with my family. I saw the new Harry Potter movie. It was brilliant. But more on that later when more people have seen it and I won't spoil it for everyone).

See, I've been thinking…… (yes I do think; I don't want any of your snide comments, Summer)

I've been thinking:
It would be scarily easy for me to exclude myself from the outer world. All I'd have to do, really, is turn off my phone, deactivate my Facebook, and stop using MSN. And since we moved recently, only one of my friends knows my house number -and she's in London- and only about four people know where my house is.

I've been dubbed the worst Keep-in-Toucher. And although I tried to deny it first, I now know I'm very worthy of this title.

I just suck at this whole techno-world with a million and one ways to keep in touch… It's supposed to make things easier, but it really doesn't, for me. I talk and talk to loads of people; sometimes they beg me to shut up, and then it gets to a point where I'm having dozens of conversations with dozens of different people. Then it all gets so overwhelming, so I retreat into my silent little shell and relax there.

A really good friend of mine left a post on my wall (after I didn't reply to her for ages) saying:
"Am I that invisible???!"

And that really got to me. Because she isn't. And I hate it when people ignore me or take ages to reply to me. So why am I doing it, damn it?


I guess what I'm trying to say is: I'm really sorry, and it's nothing personal, it really is "me and not you." Except this isn't the clichéd break-up line; it's a make-up line, because I'm going to make it up to everyone who's mad at me at the moment.

Do leave a comment and let me know if you are. I know there's plenty of you and I have the memory span of a goldfish. No, shorter, apparently that goldfish myth has been busted and their memory span can last up to three months......



Ok here's where I'll stop rambling on – Not because I want to, but because our neighbor's security alarm system thing has gone off, and it's really really loud. You'd think someone was robbing the White House itself. It's very headache-brewing.

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Procrastinators Unite.................. Tomorrow.

Ah, procrastination. What a nasty, nasty disease.

It is... quite simply, indestructible. I tried, you know? I really did. I wrote to-do lists. I lured myself with rewards, food, and goodie bags. I made thousands of promises to myself. But it seems like the more I try to put an end to this cruel disease - the more symptoms I suffer from. It's like quick sand. The more I try to break free, the deeper I sink.
In fact, I've become so good at it, I can procrastinate procrastination. Who'da thought, ay?
Anyway. And hence - the name of my humble blog.. and the reason why we are all gathered here today.

You see, I've decided to channel my unquenchable passion for keeping things to the last minute towards a healthier, more fruitful habit: Writing. I do enjoy writing. I'm one of those people who like to blab on and on about nothing in particular, just because I can. I laugh at my own lame jokes, too. I mean, if I don't, who will? I amuse myself, really.

But that's besides the point. Where were we? Oh yes. I've decided to start a blog instead of wasting time on Stumbleupon. Not that I can give up Stumbling; I am a Stumblaholic. You caught me, mouse-handed. I bet Stumbleupon is just crawling with procrastinators like yours truly. No wonder it's such a safe lil haven for lil ol' me.
"Just one more click. *click* ..................... No I meant one more click starting now. *click* Oh I like this..... But not really. Just one more super-cool thing then I'll get back to that analysis, honestly... *click* Oh WOW Italian recipes! Let me just Like this.... Oh what the hell, just one more.. *click*......................"

You get the picture.

The good news is, I work well under pressure. I can keep an essay until the last minute then come up with something passable and get a passable grade. As some wise person said, "If it weren't for the last minute, I wouldn't get anything done."
I tried fooling myself into believing that procrastination is not causing me any problems. "Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted" and yada yada, right?! And the sad truth is, procrastination actually isn't causing me any problems! Not now anyway. I know that if I spend more than an hour on my essays I could probably come up with something better than what I usually hand in... But I never get bad grades for them. So why bother?!
I get this silly little bout of paranoia every now and then and worry that, if I do change, if I do cure my Procrastinationivitus Syndrome, things will all go downhill from there..... Procrastination is really the only method I've ever known, and it works just fine. Why risk a great thing?

Like I said, it's silly. But so are most fears.

Now, I'm not really the psychotherapy-loving, mumbo jumbo, you-are-this-because-when-you-were-a-child-you-did-that type of person - that would be my mother.
"Danya dear, how many times have I told you, you have to squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom of the tube. Bottom. Bott-ommm. This just proves what a messy person you are."
And I go, "Oh so now you can tell what kind of personality I have by the way I squeeze my toothpaste?"
"Of course. I read something about it."
Oh and it gets better. My mother believes that if I start squeezing my toothpaste from the "bott-ommm" of the tube, all my problems will be miraculously solved. She believes that actions can shape your mentality. Like when I used to walk with my feet pointing slightly inward, she kept telling me that this meant I had confidence issues, and if I start walking properly I'll start feeling more confident and my self-esteem will soar through the roof :)
Like I said, not my cup of tea. But I've recently started thinking long and hard about why I procrastinate. I came up with the following reasons:

1- Deep down, I am a perfectionist buried under layers of lethargy. I have this need to be perfect and do perfect things. So I keep giving half-hearted attempts at everything and tell myself that I can do better if I really want to.

2- Because it works. It bloody well works. I putt off doing something unenjoyable, by doing something enjoyable... And I enjoy it! There really isn't anything to elaborate on.

You know, they say that if you know what the problem is, you're halfway through solving it. Well, ok, I know I have a problem: I procrastinate. They also say that if you know the reason behind a problem, you're halfway through solving it.
Well. That's halfway... and another halfway..... According to the previous statements, I've already solved my procrastinating problem.



BULLPOOP. I'm obviously still a pathological procrastinator, otherwise I'd be finishing (starting) my physics homework, analyzing the rhetorical devices used in JFK's inaugural address, writing up a report on the question of the link between globalization and gender inequality for the Model United Nations conference we're having at our school, working on our "Empowering Laborers" presentation, studying Hadeeth, doing the Arabic homework, working on the EPGY grammar course, writing the Hadeeth article........... or doing the chemistry homework. And I'm pretty sure I left something out.


Ah, this is really sad. I am pathetic.

Paging Mr. Willpower. Is there a Mr. Willpower in the house?

I'll leave you folks with one final gem of wisdom:

"The two rules of procrastination:
1) Do it today.
2) Tomorrow will be today tomorrow."

And a few cartoons that pretty much sum up my life:











Warm regards; be good.


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