The Coffeehouse

America's Next Top Model y'all! Like, totally...

Join me, it's fun and I guarantee we shall get REALLY jacked up on caffeine (yes, espresso shots :p)... Drink espresso every time..
- someone squeals/screams
- a girl says "I'm gonna win this"
- a girl says she's the one most deserving to be top model
- a girl says she's been through so much in her life
- someone cries
- someone calls another person a "female dog"
- you see a picture of Tyra, or Tyra herself

I could go on, but this game is complicated enough as it is. Two or more of the aforementioned could be happening at the same time, and frankly, trying to ingest 5 or 6 espresso shots in less than two seconds so that you could ingest another 5 or 6 shots so that you could catch up with what just happened is the best part of the game anyway.

Basil and Mohamad, my boys from Aida, doing what they do best...

Before I start off with the boring, stuff...

I made sushi today at home! (You should be ohh-ing and ahh-ing at the picture below.)

It was a dreary, rainy day and I have no classes on Wednesdays, so I decided to do what I've been meaning to do for the past 4 months (that's how long all the sushi-making supplies have been waiting too). I've recruited my brother and mother as a sushi-eaters, failed with my sister, and before I even tried, my dad very politely stated that even if sushi was the last food on Earth and he was about to starve to death, he wouldn't eat it.

Fine. More for me!

It's a week into classes and I can't say that any of my courses are that interesting, just interesting professors. I have one for my Environmental Disasters class who paused in the middle of his talk and said "Sometimes my thoughts wander off, I have A.D.D.", then continued on again. And my French professor gets really excited when we pronounce words right ("Formidable!", "Bravo!").

Did I ever mention I absolutely, positively hate frosh (freshmen, first-years, those little idiotic midgets walking around campus)? They are annoying, they're too giddy, too cheerful, too eager, and they take up too much space. There is honestly no room in the hallways to walk, it's as if they can't wait for us 4th years to leave in peace and would much rather squeeze us out of the school at the beginning of the year than endure 6 months. Well here's some news for you punks, I'm staying my full 6 months, so if you see me in the hallways, either make way for Queenie, or RUN. You've been warned.

My sister is actually a frosh this year, I shall tolerate her, she's a special frosh. Plus, she goes to a different university, so I don't really gotta deal with her froshiness.

I got an email from an Italian friend I met in Palestine. It's in Italian.

For some reason, I feel it might be a chain letter, but then there is a part of me that feels like it is some kinda update on her life?

I've been back for a week, and I never thought I'd have this hard of a time readjusting and returning back to my daily Canadian routine. In many ways, I feel like I've changed. I've learned new things, I have a different perspective on life, and even my outlook for the future has been redirected.

I went to Palestine with a good friend of mine. We planned out our trip, booked our flights, and made arrangements a couple of months ago, all the while not knowing if we were in fact going to make it into Palestine. I had no expectations whatsoever and actually prepared myself for the worse.

Getting into the West Bank is an adventure. We decided to enter through Jordan. We went through the Allenby Bridge which is a bridge over the Jordan River between Jordan and Palestine. Israelis control all entry and exit points to the West Bank, so we had to go through Israeli border checks. The first time my friend and I tried getting into Palestine we were made to wait for 7 hours at the border, then told to go back to Jordan and try again the next day if we wanted. Of course we wanted, so we tried again and waited another 6 and a half hours, this time we had to deal with body searches, luggage searches, and interrogation, but we were finally let through. May none of you have to lie as much as we had to, to be able to enter your homeland. May none of you be treated like criminals when you've done absolutely nothing wrong. May you never be treated like scum simply because you are of a different race or religion.

I spent most of my time in Bethlehem and the surrounding area, and Aida Refugee Camp, a camp in Bethlehem. I also spent some time in Al Quds, and Rahat, an Arab town in Israel proper, or as I like to put it 1948 land, near Beer Al Sabi'. My friend and I made sure to visit most of the West Bank, Al Khalil (Hebron), Ramallah, Jenin, Nablus, the Dead Sea (where most of the beaches are for Israelis only), refugee camps, and towns like Al Walaja, Abu Dis, Al Azaria where land has been confiscated to build the apartheid wall. We saw a lot and had some awful experiences at checkpoints where a Palestinian friend was beaten up by soldiers. Even so, the occupation leaves such a huge impact on everything and runs so deep, you can't truly know the situation until you've lived through it.

My family is orginally from a village in the outskirts of Akka (Acre), about 5 kilometers from the Lebanese border. No Palestinians live in the village now, everybody was chased out to Lebanon back in 1948. There is an Israeli colony beside it though. My intention was to visit it during my stay in Palestine, but with the rockets flying back and forth between Israel and Hezbollah, I knew I couldn't. Even after the ceasefire, I knew that matters could change within an hour, and I'm sure that there were tons Israeli soldiers within 5 kilometers of the Lebanese borders.

The trip out of Palestine ripped my heart to pieces. While we were traveling on the highway on our way to the northern Jordan Valley border crossing, we could see the hills of Nablus and Jenin and the rest of the West Bank on our right, and 1948 land on our left. We passed through no metal detectors at the Israeli border, our bags stayed in the car the whole time, we only left the car to get our exit stamps on our passports, half an hour, MAX. It was crazy. We had to work so hard to get our entry visa, yet with one quick, swift movement, we got the exit stamp and it was all over.

This past week back in Canada has been very tough for me. My family and friends have missed me so much, yet I haven't and would very much rather be back in Palestine, I grew so attached to the place. Three weeks was too short of a time to spend in Palestine, a place I've wanted to see my whole life. I wish I could explain to them what I saw and what I learned and who I met, but I feel that I wouldn't be able to do it justice, I can't seem to communicate it in a way that won't cheapen it. And to some degree, I feel like my time in Palestine was very personal, and I don't want to share it. Maybe I'll get around to it, someday.