Saturday, April 08, 2006

Long Time.... No See (aka: chatting, taxes, شوف الواوا, and the mourning literature)

I know I have been away for a long time now. And those who have been keeping up with me are now forgetting to pass by. I don't blame them, I have almost forgotten.
To start with, I haven't been busy more than normal lately; in fact I wish I were. But there hasn't been much thing to write about. No new experiences. But I think I can come up with some new events. And I will try to summarize what was going on with me over the past two weeks or so.
First of all, I transformed to Batman. The first half of the day is killed by sleep. As I stay late till 4 or 5 AM, I am bound to wake up late too. And lately there wasn't any work for me in the morning, so I'm enjoying it. If you wanna ask what do I do at night... god bless the video chat, a totally good invention, brings close all the elements that exist, except the one you want... a sweet killer in other words.
I am done with my taxes too. Not the Syrian taxes, those do not exist really. But as a part-year employee in USA I had to file my taxes before the 15th of this month. Now that was a pain in the ass. I have read tons of forms and publications in addition to using a couple or more tax softwares, and when I thought I got it, I found out I was an asshole. It is the first time I do it myself you know. Previously accountants took care of it; they did the job, but in retrospect they sucked. I am happy to announce that I think I did it, for free too.
Sudoku has taken some of my time. Like any new toy or gadget you buy, the first weeks are spent in admiring it then the brightness fades. Sudoku is a mental game in which you have to fill empty squares with numbers. Although these puzzles seem silly but some of them are really bad. That took out some time too, but now is, as mentioned above, fading.
What else... Haifa Wehbe released her number one hit: "شوف الواوا" and in it the lyrics reads as follows:

شوف الواوا بوس الواوا خلي الواوا يصح
لما بستو طاب الواوا صار الواوا بح


In the mean time 150 million Arabs (the male Arabs) are trying to figure out were is the "wawa (pain in child's language)" and for those who don't know English, it is not the Canadian city, nor the Pennsylvania deli chain.
I consider myself good in translation, but I am unaware of any English expressions that can describe the lowness of these lyrics. But to give it a try here you go:
See my wawa, kiss my wawa, make my wawa go
When you kissed, you healed my wawa, and you made it go
Concurrently, three prominent Syrian writers have died (Al-Maghout, Al-Malouhi, and Al-Ujaili). I have grieved most for the latter being a doctor too. Looking at the course of event I think that the Haifa song and their death is not coincidental but rather causative. They were all of old ages, diseased, probably with weak heart; such a "benign" song have probably been the last straw.

7 Comments:

At Sat Apr 08, 10:45:00 PM GMT+3, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You should be in my position with the taxes. I earned more money than expected and owe A LOT. No accountant can fix it. Good to see you back in the saddle
Felicia

 
At Sun Apr 09, 02:49:00 PM GMT+3, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is Karin writing ...
Isn't that a bit of a boring life you're leading over the last two weeks? I mean .. Ok - taxes are a MUST but every day out like a light till noon and be busy with all kind of games, chats ect till the wee-hours of the morning - and that every day?? I thought you're a physician! Are you on vacation? Any kind of a leave? What medical specialty do you have?
The lyrics of the "song" .. what can I say, pre-school-level at best! I just found your blog only recently ... good job!!

 
At Sun Apr 09, 05:33:00 PM GMT+3, Blogger Bassam said...

Hi Felicia, sad to hear about the trouble, I hope that gets fixed next year, in ways other than stopping to earn money.
Karin, Thank you for your... reassuring words ;)
The answers to your questions respectively are: yes, no, no, no, palliative medicine. There is a bit more to it than what you read. Maybe I should use this space to talk about myself a bit. I am a physician with what you may call a part time job, and the reason is I have just recently started, and starting in Damascus is not easy as no insurance laws or medicine regulations exist. so in the morning I work when needed, in the evening in the clinic. just yesterday I spent 3 hours at a patient's home manageing her. so my professional life is in wave form (ups and downs), this in fact leaves me, as a private practitioner, time to do other things. I also work on medical writing and translation, both in day time, and the wee hours of the day. Those would be boring to write about. and also, palliative medicine is not a specialty that is recognized here, so forget about getting busy when barely anyone knows about you. This is, as most of my friends know, a temporary situation for another year and fraction. then you will probably never lay eyes on this blog.

 
At Sun Apr 09, 09:54:00 PM GMT+3, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is Karin again ..
Thanks so much for giving me all those infos! I thought there must be more than meets the eye ...
Even here in Germany I hardly ever heard about a specialty "Palliative Medicine" .. I guess it is probably incorporated in, may be, Internal medicine I guess! Do you want to pursue that or make a switch to any other specialty later on ( as this, the way you say, is not recognized)? Who says I won't lay eyes on this blog in a year anymore?? I really like it and think, you're doing a GREAT job!!

 
At Mon Apr 10, 10:45:00 AM GMT+3, Blogger GraY FoX said...

wow that looks like a general diary and a newspaper as well...
great to know all about that
may i ask what is with your clinic thingie ??
anyways... that was great to read that you are doing ok :)
and concerning your ( NO TRASH ) post
damn that shows how our people can understand rules ... :P
anyways... your post of trash came on my birthday :) so hurray

 
At Fri Aug 18, 07:56:00 AM GMT+3, Anonymous Anonymous said...

dont say anything bad about haifa, bles her heart. reminds me of the old song beflosak

 
At Mon Feb 05, 09:44:00 AM GMT+2, Blogger willses said...

hello im writing a piece on music which are effecting children in a negative way.. this would be absoulty help me if you could send me the english translation to the complete song.. would very much appreicate it if you could email it to me on babii_boi_01@hotmail.com sorry about the address made it up when i was a young boy

 

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