There still are nice people in the world.

Everyday I catch the bus at the same time. Every day I fight myself to get up in the morning. And every day I grab a plethora of things in order to make it through the day. As a creature of habit, I realize that if I grab something that I don't usually bother with I end up forgetting something that I regularly get. Today I went for my lunch and a snack and ended up leaving my wallet.

I realized that my wallet was still in my house when I tried to get my money out for bus fare and nearly had a heart attack. Good thing for my the bus driver - who, let's face it, is a total flirt - is all about making sure that his regulars are taken care of. He allowed me to borrow $3.00 in order to get the bus pass that I needed. Then when I sat down on the bus another passenger, who shares the stop with me, went into her wallet and pulled out $5.00 and gave it to me. She said that it was in case I wanted to get lunch or something. She had left her wallet before and knew the feeling. Who would have thought that so many strangers would care to go out of their way to make sure a panicked, scatterbrain was covered for the day? Thank the Lord! There are still good people out there.

eventually the mask has to come off

So, there is this girl who decides to have a hymenoplasty, not because she wants to restore herself due to some back sliding she did in college. This really irks me. This girl is a "Western woman" of her own making. Raised under strict Muslim teachings in Birmingham, she lived her life without a backbone. Chopping up everything that she did to "all my friends were doing it...it was entirely accepted." Yeah, entirely accepted in the world of girls who have flings without thinking about the consequences. She takes birth control, becomes "sexually empowered" and sleeps with her boyfriends and some random guy from a party. All the while everytime she goes home she "plays" the devout muslim daughter for her parents. Praying five times a day, not listening to music, wearing her veil. She feels oppressed when she is in her parents presence. So, in the end she decides to agree to an arranged marrige to a Muslim in Pakistan? Why is that a good idea? She says that to do this is to be with a man who has the same beliefs as she does. No, it isn't. If she believed in the Muslim teachings so much she wouldn't be in the situation of having to recreate her hymen. She is doing this for all the wrong reasons. She has changed, not just strayed from her dad's teachings. She is a western woman. Living in the secular world and loving it. She says that she does not what to be "ostracized" from her family. She has already put a barrier there. She lied about her living situation for two years. She lived with her boyfriend, yeah boyfriend, no thoughts of marriage (which is against her strict Muslim upbringing). She stopped wearing her hijab, she was drinking, smoking, and sleeping around. All of this done with her hoping her parents don't find out. The only things that I can see for her future is her either abandoning her family to go back to her "western" ways or her killing herself to escape the oppression.

I am not knocking the Muslim world. I am not complaining about the male dominance. I am saying that she is chosing the wrong path. She needs to bone up and live her life the way she wants to. The Muslim teachings are not her beliefs. The only time that she claims them as her own is when she considers the pros of the marriage. All the other times she is "play[ing]" a role. What happens if her husband--who met her under the impression that she has not strayed from her beliefs--figures out a fraction of what she was into in college? She fears that her family could kill her if she doesn't bleed (honour killings are still justified), she could still end up dead at her husband's hand. You can't hide who you have become forever. Sooner or later every skeleton in her closet is going to be discovered.

grit my teeth and finish

I hate giving up on books without finishing them. On all the dozens of books that I have read in my lifetime, I can only remember giving up on three books. I will force myself to finish...I will try. Which brings me to today's point. I have decided that I would like to read a nice collections of books because I simply miss reading. A true geek, thank you. But I was reading a book already when I composed this list. Of course my review is premature and biased as I don't care much for athletes or football. The story centers around a displaced athlete and football jargon. I will finish the book, of course. His hormones are just really getting on my nerves. Between that and talk about the great game of Football Americano, I can't figure out where the story is going. It just this useless collections of words that isn't for me. I want it to end. I have better books to read.

I'm rolling my eyes at this book and I still haven't made it half way through. *sigh* This is so aggravating.