The couple that has separate cameras and computers, even if the items differ in quality, is a very wise couple indeed.
There is the desire to “share” everything when people get married, and I have had friends turn their nose up at couples who don’t “share.”
I share a lot with DH. Sharing is fine for some things. I totally love not sharing a computer and a camera. Big thank you to DH and DM for making that happen.
My uncle showed up a day early which means I get to spend my Last Day Off Until August First in my No Vacation Summer Because I am Saving It For Ramadan with HIM!!!
Totally a gift from God to brighten my spirits after having been treated like crap all weekend (to wit, yesterday’s post). Big Alhamdoulillah for me, I am SO excited he is here!
Fun Fact about Uncle: Back before my time in the early 70s, when he was 12 of course (no seriously it was after college but we don’t talk about his age like that), he spent almost a month in Algeria just running around. He evidently did his own tour of Africa. As in the whole continent. And spent several months doing so. Must have been a cool time with all the post-independence stuff going on in a lot of countries. I have some of his photographs from that time (he is a talented photographer and writer).
I get to use my cane today when we hang out.
I would be remiss if I did not mention that Nice Husband himself was responsible for identifying our computer problem, implementing the interim solution which allowed me to make my previous post, and finding a solution that allowed us to return to an enhanced version of our previous internet set up.
I guess those masters degrees in telecommunications and MIS really came in handy. I was getting worried for a minute.
Anyway that was for those of you who may have mistakenly been misled that I would fix the computer problem.
Let’s do a Thanks God because I am in a stank mood because my foot is killing me and I can’t go outside in this beautiful weather.
1. I am 100% alone for the first time in like twenty days. I was about to lose my everliving mind. I need to be alone from time to time. Not all the time, but it is essential to me as a human being to be around silence and not be around other people for a few hours each WEEK. I don’t think that is unreasonable, and I don’t think wanting to be alone a few times a month makes me a bad muslim. Whatevers.
2. Being alone means I get to pick both the channel on the television and how loud I want to watch it.
3. Sheep make me happy. I am still digging myself out of my ten-day technology hole but when I get there I will upload pictures of my new friends.
4. I had a great weekend last weekend. We went to Angers and had a cookout with my husband’s friend and his family. It was nice just doing something normal like a cookout and being around interesting people.
5. I do not miss my old job for a second. Not even half a second. The short commute has changed my life dramatically.
6. Speaking of which I bit the bullet and went back to contacts. The plan right now is to alternate between glasses and contacts. I go through contacts phases every few years.
7. There was a bee in here about to drive me crazy and it just flew out the window. It’s the little things in life.
8. I think I found a new sunscreen. I was using Clarins. I don’t mind paying top dollar for stuff that works, and the Clarins works, but I got a sample tube of Avene SPF 50+ and wore it to the cookout. Considering I did not reapply, I am pretty impressed to have held up several hours with only a little redness on my nose and my cheeks and backs of my hands. The Avene is also 1/3 the price.
So I think I am going to finish up my Clarins and switch. It is quite odd that I spent years looking for a sunscreen and wound up just staying inside for a few years and now, within a few years of each other that actually work. Before either my skin would freak out or the sunscreen would just slop off and I would burn immediately like I had none on. These two stay on and don’t hurt my skin.
9. I have mad skeelz. Just saying. One day people will recognize. 
It has taken a lot of time for me to make peace with the fact that while an average citizen, I do have an unexpected life.
10. Finally, another reason I like the new job is because I am speaking more French. So much so that I had a hard time thinking of the right words in English for this post. Thrilling.
Thank you for all comments, just wanted to update and say that our internet was out, then something happened with the wireless router, and right now we have a temporary ghetto set up which I hope to fix later in the week. Until then, think of me and my new coworkers: fluffly brown sheep hang out outside of my building and randomly bleat and clink their bells at me. They were outsourced to eat the grass, apparently.
More later incha Allah.
Usually I don’t like to talk politics because I don’t feel I have anything new or insightful to say, but this has been bugging me for a while. People are all up in arms because of Obama’s “ex” pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Personally from what little I know, I don’t think he is any more or less kooky than anyone else, but what really bothers me is that I don’t think Rev. Wright’s positions on certain topics-or on any topic- would be an issue to anyone if he and Obama were both white. I don’t think this anti-Wright backlash has anything to do with his religious leanings. Think about the crazy foolishness Bush has come up with about Jesus. Now Bush is one dude whose religious talk scares the eff out of me. A white dude is a hardcore Christian that says foolish stuff about Christianity, and he is just an evangelical or born again and no one bats an eyelash. Take the same or similar points of view and have them come out of the mouth of a non-white and all of a sudden people are wigging out like the Black Panthers are going to come and steal babies in the middle of the night.
I don’t get it.
Thursday’s Installment of Thanks God
1. I have a four day weekend. Thursday is a holiday here- not for May Day but for Ascension, and this is evidently the first time in a bazillion years this has happened but whatevs, I don’t care I am off- and at the new job they have decided to take Friday off. So I don’t start until Monday.
2. Speaking of new job, my commute is, in a word, the bomb. I have about five different ways to get to and from work. I had a test drive Monday and even leaving at the normal time, I got home early enough to do grocery shopping. Unheard of. I have never had this in Switzerland. Every other place involved major commuting drama- no trains, long hours, traffic jams on buses. I am pinching myself!
3. My only going away present from old job was…get this…a Chanel eyeshadow quad from my partner in crime. That quad totally makes up for the fact that almost everyone else conveniently forgot yesterday was my last day. Not that I care, I have Chanel eyeshadow. And a good friend. Even my husband was impressed with the eyeshadow, and he is not easily impressed.
4. I feel so freakin rested! I came home last night at like eleven and slept…until eleven. Now I have a four-day weekend AND only a twenty minute commute on Monday. I don’t know what to do with myself. Today I cleaned the kitchen and did three loads of laundry. It’s pure insanity.
5. I am actually excited to go to work on Monday. I haven’t felt that way in a long, long time.
6. I got this box of English tea which is supposed to be Keemun but is obviously laced with speed. Keemun is supposed to be noted for its low caffeine content, and after two evenings with Keemun where I did not fall asleep until two am, I have now decided to embrace the speed and keep it for the mornings. PG Tips, oddly enough, does not wake me up. It is now my evening tea.
7. Nice Husband makes the kind of cave art drawing in Microsoft Paint I only aspire to. Who knew? His talent is boundless. I asked him if I could post his building drawings in Paint on the blog and he gave that a quick nyet. He is a very private artist.
8. I have at least four books already in my possession I could read. Oh the choices! And I want to read them all!
9. Warm weather is here, and while being hot and funky is going to suck, at least now my hands will not be chapped and crazy. Welcome to normal hand weather!
10. I promise to never laugh at my people in the States ever again when it comes to gas prices. Gone are the days when one gallon costs the same as one liter here. Spoke to my father the other night and it turns out gas prices where he lives (south Mississippi) are not that much cheaper than here. Oh well. Thanks God for trains!
I hope everyone has a beautiful and pleasant weekend!
Now at the masjid they tell us that we should want Islam for everyone. Even if we don’t do active dawah, we should strive to call people to Islam and want the best for people.
That’s all fine and good. However I am having a hard time walking the walk when I read this.
Why do we get the Jacksons and the Pete Doherty of the world? Where is our generation’s Cat Stevens? Pretty please?
Oh and Britney’s new piece? I don’t know how much converting he’s going to be doing with those big crosses he has on. When I first saw him I thought he was one of those Lebanese Christians (nothing wrong with my Lebanese Christian peeps, love y’all) with the open shirt to the belly button and the big old cross. I think she dumped him tho.
Help me, I think I am going to lose my work permit! The Fascists are coming for me!
I generally try to stay out of Swiss politics. One, it is a lot harder to understand than French politics or American politics, and during my first couple of years here I had the policy of, “They let me live here, I have a job, I am going to keep my mouth shut.” The whole when in Rome stuff. But the UDC (SVP in German) gets on my last everlovin’ nerve. I can’t decide who I dislike more, Nicolas Sarkozy or Christoph Blocher. Probably Sarkozy, but Blocher, especially when he speaks French like an ignorant fool (which considering he is an ignorant fool should be expected), I just want to slap him. I simply don’t know how a logical, reasonable human being can think like him.
In case you missed last year’s ad campain where the pure, Swiss, white sheep kicked out the black sheep for more “security” (ah the old theme of security), you can find the German version of that beautiful poster on the Wikipedia entry on the UDC. The French version is the same except it said, “Pour plus de sécurité.” Well obviously the big heads at the UDC decided that one racist, incendiary ad campaign simply wasn’t enough. The black sheep were just too successful. You see, black sheep are supposed to be criminal foreigners, but in reality this designation extended to anyone foreign and, well, brown.
As a public service, Ms. Mac posted the German version of the new poster. The new posted is a big pot of shiny red Swiss passports with a bunch of brown hands grabbing for them. Again, ostensibly, this poster is against mass naturalization. The problem is that naturalization, like the “criminal foreigners” isn’t the problem in Switzerland.
I wouldn’t bat an eyelash if this poster was in France, as being naturalized in France, while getting harder, is WAY than ever getting a Swiss passport. To put it in perspective: I will become a French citizen, incha Allah, next year, based on five years of marriage to a French national (And yes BTW I deserve my French passport thank you very much). My husband has been in Switzerland since 2003. He will be in line for Swiss citizenship, and thus get to stick his foreign hand in the big pot of passports, in APRIL 2016. 12 years peeps. And there are a series of penalities for moving between cities, cantons and so on. Oh, and by the way, that is 12 years on the same type of residence permit. Which is why 2016-2003 equals 13 (see you thought I was just bad at math). If you had two or three different types of permits, the 12 years counts from your most recent permit type. And the most previous three years have to be spent in the same commune. Oh, and by the way, having citizenship based on residence is not a right. They can “choose not to renew” your C permit or turn it into citizenship if you spend too much time on public assistance, if you are sick, and so on. And when you have done your time to submit the naturalization request, even if your nose is clean, it is still at the discretion of the commune where you apply. I have heard of people being refused citizenship for not being “Swiss enough” and by “Swiss enough” they mean knowing the local wine, having a carnotzet, and especially marrying Swiss. So let me get this straight, you shouldn’t marry a Swiss person for a residence permit and if you do you will get major hell from the authorities, but if you marry someone who isn’t Swiss, then in 20 years they will turn down your naturalization for not being Swiss enough. Ok. So my point is that it is entirely conceivable that you could be here 20 or 30 years without ever becoming a citzen, and without your children ever becoming citizens. I know someone personally whose child is born in Switzerland and STATELESS. Stateless. In the 21st century. Why? Because becoming Swiss is just that hard. Which is exactly my point.
That’s all fine and good. I ain’t here to judge Swiss naturalization laws. My rant is not about that. My rant is about the fact that due to the obvious difficulty in attaining Swiss passports mentioned anecdotally above, the Pass the Pot of Passports Poster is a giant hunk of racist crap. Just like the black sheep, it is all about appealing to the “insecurity” demographic. Ooh let’s keep the foreigners out! That poster makes me sick when I see it. I have nothing to be worried about, safely wrapped in my white privilege and my full-time job and BA, and even I feel uncomfortable when I see that poster. I can’t imagine how an unemployed person must feel, or a sick person, or even a traveller.
I am probably going to get arrested and kicked out of Switzerland for taking a Sharpie drawing a picture of Blocher with a Hitler moustache on the next one I see. Swiss jails are clean though.
There I feel better. Rant over.
