Panda bear aka. my father, aka. my back bone, my light and shining star in life - is here for three days. Today we went to the mosque in Abu Dhabi again. We were joined by this guy who is Spanish and visiting from our office in Zurich. Sometimes I suggest the randomest things. Anyway it was cool. I never realised how amazing my dad is. I am so lucky to have him in my life, and yes - I thought at 27 I would be able to share my outings with my fiance or boyfriend, but they can come later. My dad and these precious moments that I get to spend with him wont be here forever, so I will savour every minute. I've missed him so much. If everything goes shit in my life , It will be ok - because God gave me the best dad in the world. Seriously.

I prayed again at the mosque. I forgot how important that part of my life was.

In the meantime - I am reminded of why I moved here. Mainly by dad. I want to make him more than anything, proud of me. Everything he is saying is true. I need to become more of a woman too. I feel this need to start being proud of who I am like alot of Arabic women. I need to take better care of my body and myself, this is the first step in getting to where I want to be. Concentrating on work is one thing - but learning to love who I am (which starts with more love and respect for me), is also another step. I am realizing more and more what I want. I need to become who I want to attract. Confident, ambitious, focused, healthy, honest, happy and kind. I want to attract these attributes in everything in my life.

On that note, I've started getting obsessed with Arabic singers, and old Italian glamour. I guess it sounds lame, but thats the kind of woman I want to be. I want to love who I am, but not take too much space (physically and metaphorically). I want to ooze femininity, and I don't want to doubt myself. I want to walk down the street - and I want people to look and say - I don't know if she's single, or a mother, or recently married, or poor, or successful - I want to know this woman.

Lame post, I know - but this is it. I am 27 and I want to start changing my lifestyle now. So that when I'm 30 or 35 or 40, I don't sit there and wish 'if only I had made a start then'. The long term benefits of being healthy, outweigh the short term benefits of eating shit food. I want to start with my body. I want to focus. I want to keep calm and carry on with my job. I want to be a better person - both inside out. God how many posts is it going to take before I actually apply this mantra? hah.

For now - I am good, but I know I am not yet my best. Tomorrow, I'll be one step closer.

Here's a picture I've made my desktop wallpaper to inspire my change. I make it my mission, that in November this year - I will take a picture similar to this - and post it on this blog. With those arms. That waist. Dammit it will happen.

Also - I couldn't stop thinking about my quicker than blowing out a flame fling. It's because I met him in Abu dhabi -and I kept listening to this stupid Arabic sad song. Anyway - I'm only thinking about that because I'm choosing to focus on the wrong things again, and nothing new in terms of boys I'm attracted to has come my way. God I'm impatient! haha.

Here's the song I had on repeat.

Time to take my heart off my sleeve.

I wear my heart on my sleeve 
Don't act like that's a disease
Need y'all to bear with me please
I just say what I see
We all just chasing a dream
In the land of the free
While we paying a fee
To stay on this concrete

Well, I don't know the price of your roof
But the first of the month we all pay our dues
When the rain falls it don't rain on a few
When the sun shine it don't shine just on you

I don't know the monsters you knew 
But I'm trying to forget the ones I met too 

Baby you could help me
Baby I could help you 

You look at me and you see what I see
Because your looking in the mirror 
When your with me there's no use in hiding
Because you're looking in the mirror

Baby baby baby don't look away 
Because you're looking in the mirror 
Cause maybe maybe maybe we're just the same 
Because you're looking in the mirror

We're all crossing paths
For a reason I know that
Hoping just to share some laughs hope avoid the broken glass
Have I met u in the past
In a life that I lived last 
Youknow they go too fast
God knows they go to fast

Girl in the park one day

Killing all the bugs on the pavement

Seems like she got a nasty streak

But she does it in a beautiful way

Like a bullet from a gun

She sparks and then she runs

The only thing she's sure of

Is that no one really understands

Sometimes ... talking about

Things just seem so strange

Lie awake in the lonely night

Things just seem so strange

Maybe it's all prearranged

Tears on an empty page

Look out the window see the full moon bloom and

This is what he says, Baby

Don't you worry

When you feel so lonely, cos

Everyone's lonely

They're all crazy too

Like their mothers

Like their fathers

Everyone's crazy

Under a lonely moon

Sometimes she gets this way

About her when she sways

Slips into a liquid tune

And vanishes away

And it's only for herself

She can't bring anyone else

Everyone's got a special box

That they keep on a dusty shelf

Such a beautiful dangerous thing

Beautiful and strange

Making love to the night itself

Beautiful and strange

Maybe it's all prearranged

Tears on an empty page

Look out the window see the full moon bloom and

This is what he says, Baby

Don't you worry

If people call you crazy, cos

Everyone's crazy

They're all lonely too

Like their mothers

Like their fathers

Everyone's crazy

Under a lonely moon

I just came back from my second business trip. I was in Kuala Lumpur - and I loved it. I guess everything seems luxurious post Nigeria!  I had a chance to meet up with my cousin, who is lovely, and I saw my niece for the very first time ever. Shes cute. I last saw my cousin with my mum, 4 years ago. She was just pregnant then (and 22). Oh life. It's moving so fast. 

I was on the trip with a work colleague. Upon first impressions, shes clearly someone who is addicted to tanning. And blonde. You might say she would be a materialistic and mean. Never thought I would say thanks to her,because I've come back a changed woman. She is such a doer. She really told me how it is, but more importantly, she led by example the whole trip. Every morning, I wanted to be lazy and complain and give up, and she used every opportunity to work hard. She's my age, and yes she has guys left right centre, but it comes from her confidence. And her confidence comes from the fact that she's always herself. And she works hard for everything in her life. And shes happy in the now. She has gone through her ups and downs, but as a person I don't know that well - we spent alot of time together in 5 days, and it was just what I needed. A semi objective opinion, based upon a series of first impressions. 

Out of everything I learnt this trip, I think she unintentionally made me realize me two very important things:

1) She heard me talk to my dad with a really bad tone in the morning, and then pulled me aside and told me I should not talk to my dad like that. This was pretty much a stranger who had noticed this....and I took it upon myself to realize what a spoilt B*** I can be sometimes. She had lost her dad, and she said 'you're lucky he even wants to talk to you!, even if he did call you so early in the morning!". Truth. Accepted. I called my dad and apologized. The sad part was that he had become so used to my tone, he didn't even notice. 

2) I wanted to sleep in and complain about how hard this job is every morning we where there. She shut me up, woke up at 7am and went to the gym. Every morning of the business trip. She wasted no opportunity. Then she sat me down, and we planned our day. It was jam packed from 9am to 7pm. Had I gone alone, I would have abused the free time completely  She works so hard, on her career, on her body, and on her as a genuine person. I know she has her issues too - and it's taken long for her to get here aswell - but shes here, and shes moving forward.  

Thanks to her I learnt the simple truth. In a world that owes you nothing, you have to give it your everything. 

Yet again, god is in the small things. The unexpected.  I had to get back on track, so the universe arranged for this trip. I needed to see someone like her in action. I needed this trip to re-focus. 

In short, Malaysia and March 2013 taught me to always Be yourself. Be nice. Be kind. Control your emotions. Stop giving yourself a hard time, when nobody else is. If you don't like something - change it. If you made a decision, stick to it and be grateful.


I heard this song as we were landing into Dubai. It put into words exactly how I feel about my current lifestyle with all the travelling! Not that I really know where home is at the moment. Anyway, I loved it. Enjoy xxx    

Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

I never understood what that meant, until I looked back on the past 3 years, in which, I've gotten nearly everything I have asked for. I feel so spoilt, and still I search. Being alone  makes me think of so much I want to do. My mind seems to never want a break. Problem is, I never focus and set my mind to one thing. Maybe I have A.D.D? Heh. Most probably. That or I'm just impatient.

I just said bye to my mum again. I'm flying out to Malaysia tonight, and she's staying on till the end of the week. These farewells have become a little too common for me. And I hate that.Her presence here has taught me so much. I really do understand her and appreciate her better with time. But also with distance. When I realise that she's not going to be there when I come back....the thought just washes over me and I cry because I realise how fast life is moving, and how much expectation there is...either by the standards you set, or those that this modern age does. And I remember all my loved ones in Iraq,and Jordan, and Ireland and NZ, and Spain and I just want to sit them all in one room and drink in their words, and their smiles and their laughter. God my soul needs them.But it also needs this expereince. This loneliness. I am yet to learn about betrayal, and backstabbing, and jealousy and envy and heartbreak. I need to drown all that naivety and stop being spoilt. So I need to stay here and I need to persevere.

Then the morbid thoughts start swimming in my head - and I quickly try to drown them with positive notions. Still, they whisper - "what if this is the last time you see _____?". Fill in the blank. That's all life is sometimes isn't it? You trying to fill in the blanks.

I better get ready for the trip....I forgot how great Cat Empire is....here's two of my faves from them. Enjoy x

I had a plan

but never finished it

and I've been searching for the thought

and I've been searching in a haze

I try all days

to remember it

but now the blueprint in my mind has gone

my mind forgot the colour of direction

and my eyes they see the hands

that could have built

that could have constructed

the empire in my mind

the empire

I'll never find

I had a plan

but that was where it ended

SOL Y SOMBRA  - como mi alma.


 

Time to be honest with myself now. The wheels of change are turning. Life owes you nothing. NOTHING. I have been pampered and spoilt my whole life. No matter how much I think I know - I know nothing of the world yet. Partly funded travel is not a hard life. I am still learning. I don't know the meaning of hard work. When things don't work out the way  I want - I give up. I run away. I've always done that. The only thing I have stuck with is Law...yes I've become stronger, less naive. Yes I am independent. But....this is it. You're forgetting God doesn't give too many chances.....

Thank you mum today for the tough love. You made me cry, but you also made me see what I need to. Yes we don't see eye to eye, but I know I argue with you because part of what you say is right. I am unhappy with myself - and that is why I react the way I do. I know you have your points that I will never understand, but it's too late for you to change. Not for me. This will be the tough year. I'm not here to find love, or party, or spend all my salary. I am certainly not here to just complain and ignore my blessings. But that's all I've done. I need balance - yes, but I need focus more. I chose this path, and I am blessed enough to have parents who have supported every choice I made. I am sick of my excuses - which I noticed myself repeating today:  I am doing this for them. Or I am like this because of my mum, or how she treats me. None of this is a fact. None of it is inherited. They are just excuses. They are easy to produce. I need to know real hard ship. All I've known is good luck, and fun. So what if I am alone. I need to know myself, and stand up for what I want. No body is going to give me that answer. Not a boyfriend, not a husband not my parents. I need to know what I want. Go for it. And If I don't, I need to make the most of where I am now. Try my hardest before giving up.

Second to last day with mum - listening to Fairuz over breakfast. I will miss this......

Me and mum went to the most beautiful mosque in the morning in Abu Dhabi. Seriously, it was amazing. For a while, whilst you were there and reminded that there is infact a higher power - the world and it's problems become so insignificant. Perspective is much needed. I heard NZ's own Bic Runga on the way back too and it made me smile :) The universe knows how you are feeling, even if you don't. 

ps. Here's a pic of the mosque. 

                                                       Just wanna know ya

Just wanna talk to ya

I wanna hear about your day

I'd never leave ya

Never be mean to ya

I'd always let you get your way

Something good will come our way 

And maybe this good thing's gonna happen today

If I were honest

I'd tell you everything

But it keeps coming out as lies

Its' not a promise

In case your wondering

It's not some blessing in disguise

                                           I know romance is not in fashion

And my heart is on the line

If you would be so kind

To help me kill some time

Then something good just might come crashing

From the stars that light the sky

If you would be so kind

To help me kill some time