Dear Roommates...

Having spent the last 2 years living by myself, returning to live

roomates (3 of them) can sometimes be a bit challenging.

I came home last night to find not a single clean

dish/cutlery/pot/glass in the whole kitchen,

(a mess made by just one of the roommates alone)

feeling too tired to do anything i ate a bag of crisps for dinner and went to bed,

not before piling every single dish into the kitchen sink this morning before i left.

I returned home tonight to find the dishes cleaned but the kitchen flooded....

i instantly picked up the mop and started trying to clean it up,

until after 5mins i stopped,

again, i'm cleaning up after one roommate....

i am not her mother,

and i am too tired to care tat the kitchen is flooded with an inch of water.

Dont get me wrong....

anyone who has ever met me will tell you that

i'm the messiest person that they've ever met.

But i do try to be a conciousness roommate.

But i've had so many confrontations at work recently

i really dont feel like coming home and starting more at home,

so to release some of my pent up room mate aggression

i thought i'd write down the little list f roommate

annoyances that have been getting me recently....

Dear Roommates,

Why am i the only one with toothaste?

Please stop being cheapskates and buy your own.

Dear Roommates,

If your going to continue to keep using my toothpaste,

please learn to be sneakier by squeezing it from the bottom.

Dear Roommates Girlfriend,

Please bring your own toiletries when you stay the night.

Dear Roommates,

Before setting up a new trash bag,

please take out the old ones....

the flies that hover around it will follow it out the door.

Dear Roommate,

Yes the kitchen is flooded....

are you planning on going swimming?

Dear Roommates,

I have decided that i also can not read the part

of the cleaning rota which says 'clean fridge'.

Dear Roommates,

Thank you for not being my last set of roommates.....

i'd rather have you any day!

Movies without words....

I once accidently watched a dvd with the 'soundtrack only'

version that was a special feature.

It took me until half way through the movie to realise this.

I was thinking,

'wow, this movie is so innovative,

look how they can express themselves with just the soundtrack'

(don't think i'm really really stupid, but it was the biography of some cellist,

so the music did heavily feature in it.)

but it was really really beautiful.

(i dont remember the name of the movie, Hilary and.......?)

Maybe its the dancer in me,

we spend so long trying to express ourselves to music without our words,

But i think its why Wallee is one of my favourite Disney cartoons too.

Anyhows,

i bring this up because i just watched the movie ,The Illusionist.

And this one actually is a movie without words...a cartoon actually.

About a failing magician who meets a girl who truly believes that he can do magic.

And it's beautiful,

And its set in Edinburgh,

Which only makes it even more beautiful.

Just another day at the office...

I made a video of one of my rehearsals the other day.

It's good for me to watch it over and self-criticise in order to help me improve.

And i thought i'd share....

and seeing as i'm soon to be an unemployed ballerina,

please feel free to pass it onto any ballet directors

that you might be having afternoon tea with.

Grumpy...

This week i have been grumpy.

Like, really grumpy.

I cant even begin to tell how many pointless fights that

i've had at work and just how many people are no longer speaking to me....

or acknowledging my existence.

The situation at work is hard at the moment and

lots of things are going on instituted by my fellow colleagues that have hurt

me on a personal level.

And its hard not to feel grumpy

because i no longer feel like i'm in a friendly environment.

I'm constantly on the defence and feel i ought to stand up for myself,

although to be honest its not worth it.

Being grumpy just makes me angry and unhappy.

So this week i'm going to try really hard that every time

i get into a hard situation and i'm going to see the

funny side and make myself laugh...

Its the only way to survive.

Poor Panda....

Did you see this photo of a Panda hugging a

Japanese policemans leg cause he is so scared after the Earthquake.

It breaks my heart.

Facebook dateable.....

I have a friend whose last two boyfriends where met on facebook.

'How?' I asked him.

They wrote to me I wrote back...ect. ect.

What's more they were both really nice guys.....like really nice.

Personally i find it a bit weird,

and was secretly miffed that no-one has ever tried to 'facebook date' me.

But today i got a 'facebook date' message -

"plz u should know that iam not a bad man or who play with people or lie at them i just one who saw your pic and admire u and want to know u good and be friends

i know that u know that egyptian men r bad or they always lie to foreign gurls or something like that but i swr iam not and iam not tybe who have many relations iam good man and i can do anything to prove to u i want just one time listening to me and i wont broke u i swr and promise u that give me one time plllllz and iam not who look for relagion or age etc...

pllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllz let us writ or communicate to know each other pllzzzz tell me that u r agree to be friends plllllllllz"

and i still find it weird (as in i blocked him)

but am also secretly chuffed that i'm not completely 'facebook undateable'.

But then again,

having just ended a two year relationship, i'm also considering

finding the email of the guy who proposed marriage to me

when i wrote to him about renting an apartment he had advertised....

anything to stop me crying myself to sleep at night

Perfect Weather....

The weather in Egypt at the moment is perfect.

26 Celsius with a nice cool breeze.

Pity i'm spending most of it in a stinky sweaty studio.

But every chance i get i'm sitting outside soaking it up before it gets to hot.

The Egyptians keep walking past thinking that i'm crazy.

It has also been mentioned how fast i was to get back into my summer dresses,

apparently they only saw me in jeans for about two weeks.

I tell them i'm making up for all those years in Scotland where

weather like this would be a miracle.

and they dont know how to appreciate some of the good things that they've got!

A year ago today.....(well almost)...

I am the worst diary keeper ever.

I had a diary that i started when i was 12,

which only has about 30 pages written in it.

So last year in order to combat this a wee bit i bought a smaller book.

Like really small.

It hasnt really made a difference to my diary keeping skills.

But i picked it up today and read what i wrote (nearly) a year ago today,

and it helped me with some problems that i'm experience at the moment,

maybe this realisation will help me be a better diary keeper.

But then again, i'm sure that i've had that realisation before.

at any rate i thought i'd share....

March 1st 2010

Snowboarding

"That's it your done with the baby slope"

"Are you sure? I'm still falling over all the time."

"Yes, there is nothing to learn here."

He takes me to the top of the mountain and i begin to panic.

How can i be here at the top of the mountain?

I can't see the bottom of the slope,

just lots of humps that look like they end in sheer drops.

It's too scary.

I can no longer do the basic steps that i learned before, everytime i try i fall down.

I am frustrated that I cant do it any more.

I try and fail at least 20 times and become unable even to stand upright any more.

I scream and shout at him as he sits on the other side of the slope.

"Come and help me"

"i cant do it"

He just waits.

Smiling.

This frustrates me even more as i know

how easy it would be for him to come over and help me.

I get angrier and then i frustrate myself to the point of tears.

I unclip my snowboard and walk over to him.

He just gives me a hug,

"Alright madame, ready to go on?"

I nod my head, meekly.

And on i went.

Was it any easier after my two-year-old style tantrum?

No. I still kept falling, but everytime i got up again and kept trying and

he was there close by watching me and giving me

little pointers along the way

and in the end i was pleased with my amateur progress.

I think the Lord watches over us whilst we have our childlike tantrums

when he takes us to the top of a new mountain.

And sometimes we shout at him,

and sometimes we want to know why he wont

come help us when he so easily can,

but most of the time it takes for us to humble ourselves

and take ourselves closer to him so we can carry on

with our difficult journey with Him by our sides.

Heading backwards....

So i head back to Cairo tomorrow.

I'm nervous and apprehensive.

Not about returning to Egypt itself,

i'm pretty sure things will be fine on that front.

But i've had no contact from my job,

and all the rumours i've heard arent looking good

about what lies ahead for me in the future.

I dont know what sort of minefield that i'm stepping back into,

and i'm not sure that i can take it anymore.

I'm not sure that i want to.

Losing another job after 6 months just may be one knock to many.

And i'm feeling a little bit like the Pizza Hut

that used to be on the corner of my street...

looted.