It’s (the year of) 2011 as most of us generally refer to it, but it would add value to someone like me who lives in the Gulf to know that 2011 is otherwise known as 1432 years or Year 1432.

I can’t believe the irregularity of my recent postings and that I needed to have a guest blogger last week. Thanks to my kyoooot kittycat! I hope that I would be able to write more frequently as I excitedly recall my pending tasks in terms of blogging.  But as we say, the  spirit is willing, but Witsandnuts is hungry for sleep…eeek, the flesh is weak! Did you know that there was that rare moment that I was blogging in my dreams, in fast paced scenarios, along with my other dreams that I am tied up with plenty of tasks? Being haunted in our dreams, scary isn’t it? But don’t worry, that rarely happens. There were days that I woke up feeling like I didn’t sleep at all because I’m so exhausted in the dreamland. On a happy note, there were days that I felt so rested even if I got only 3 to 4 hours of sleep. Sounds familiar, eh?

What’s keeping me (more) busy?

The need to push more to learn Arabic

I mentioned over a year ago that I was enrolled (sponsored) to the Arabic business course – first level. But due to the alignment of priorities and schedule itself, I decided not to take the advanced level. And maybe because of the anyway-I’m surviving-and-the-people-around-me-speak-good-English-and-documents-can-be-translated attitude.  Although inside my head, I always plan to devour my self-study materials. But that does not happen. It’s like that treadmill inside your apartment shouting “Hey! Am I just a decor here?” and you always defer its utilization… until it’s full of dust.

And one day I woke up telling myself, “I need to be two steps ahead”. So I’m now trying to catch up with the lost time. Although being eloquent in Arabic is not a must in my current function at work, I opine that I must prepare and do something more than the required for the sort of global competitiveness (naks!). But first, I had to be convinced that I am doing this for my self-satisfaction more than anything else. Though if I can be totally honest, when I’m ultra struggling and I want to give up, I tell myself “matulog na nga lang ako” (I better invest on sleep). Heeehee. And you know what? That’s the signal that we should keep going!

Learning Arabic is really challenging. Especially if it’s the business Arabic that you’re aiming for. The spoken one is easier to appreciate and has several channels, but I guess I’m pushing myself to the limits that my main goal is to become articulate in reading business documents in Arabic. That means that I’m boldly thinking to have the competency level of the professional translators (I even bought a business Arabic dictionary). Yaiks, as I am writing this I realized that masyadong mataas ang pangarap ko (I’m boastful that I’m aiming too high)! That’s 10 times harder. Although there are translators/resources, it feels good to be self-sufficient to a certain extent.

Speaking of Ramadan, here’s the Arabic scribble shown on the first photo. I set the edit in Instagram (yes, I’m currently hooked to this app as you probably noticed in my recent posts) in black and white to emphasize the emboss. The scribble reads as “Ramadan Kareem” or Happy Ramadan.

And what about this one? That’s my full name. I can write a little now. Looks artistic eh? To those who are going to attempt to decipher, take note that reading is from right to left.

But I must remember that I need to enhance my reading more than the writing skills (naks, skills daw)! Speaking of reading, I was struggling to read a document earlier where it took me ages to understand the correlation of August 3, 2011 with the insert 1432 (all written in Arabic). In the end, I finally gathered that 1432 refers to the number of Islamic year (from the date Prophet Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Madinat and established Islam).

Foster parents for Winello

Since we will be traveling, we started interviewing lovely people who are applying to be the foster parents of our kittycat, Winello. We didn’t expect that the response would be overwhelming with the help of Feline Friends of Abu Dhabi.

It’s good that our curtains are strong and not that sensitive, he’s now a little explorer.

If you wish to see more photos/ know more of the (my self-proclaimed) most charming cat in Abu Dhabi, please do visit his kittyblog titled Winello the Cat.

Screening foster parents is challenging and fun. Since they are all deserving, the decision making can get really tough. I wish we can say yes to everyone! Although there’s the occasional (normal) hesitation that the kittycat or the foster parent might get too attached to the other and it would be heartbreaking to kiss goodbye when we return and the other possibilities. At the end of the day, the process feels like we are taking the diligence and skepticism which parents have for a child when selecting a guardian/ meeting a possible partner in life. Only if it’s possible and feasible to take him to all the planned travels.

Paper work, paper work, paper work

No matter how exciting it is to travel, the planning may require paper work more than what’s expected. It just so happened that our passports were due for renewal (and luckily we allotted ample time for possible delay) and not to mention the other formalities. We are also sponsoring the visit of my aunt (finally we were able to convince her) and the added documentation from Immigration Office of the Philippines makes you say ‘what for?’.

(The slipper is one of the prizes I won from Photo Cache’s blog anniversary giveway.)

Celebrations!

On a happy note, the momentous celebrations with family and friends are the reasons that need no reservation to get really, really busy — cooking, eating, laughing and more! That’s the part that never fails to make me realize that life is wonderful.

(An Iranian food chain in Abu Dhabi)

My future employer (I’m moving in officially next week) enrolled me to a basic cum business Arabic course. Twice a week, I’m attending the class at night together with six classmates-future officemates (French, Canadian, Australian, Indian). The truth is, before this, I only know at most 10 Arabic words that I couldn’t even pronounce with conviction. But strangely, I would understand sometimes part of the Arabic discussions at work. Think about body language, expression, etc. Or maybe, I’m just too assuming to think that I understood some.

Anyway, after the first hour of the course, I already know how to read and pronounce properly the alphabet (which I call A-ba-ta, as the first three letters are pronounced like that). We’re on our third week, and I’m happy that I’m doing good so far. What’s adding to my confidence is the fact that a Filipino’s tongue is really the most flexible when adapting a new language. This, again, proven in our class. Let’s just say that it’s a breeze to me when it comes to pronunciation part and reading, too, in a way. But my classmates and I are really finding it more challenging, as beginning next week the medium of instructions will be purely in Arabic. And that probably there’ll be zero English moment for the students, too.

Off work and when I’m on the road or let’s just say, whenever there’s an opportunity, I try to read every Arabic wording or signs that I will see. I feel I’m back to being 4 or 5 years old, when I was just starting to read properly. I hope it’s easy like that. But guess what? Unlike in English and Tagalog, in Arabic we read and write from right to left. And the picture/form of each letter from the alphabet changes depending on when it’s used in forming a word (e.g. letter ba’ = counterpart of B, changes its looks if it’s used as the first, middle or last letter in a word. And I must always remember, they don’t have V and P in their alphabet.

By the way, the title of this post means Hello in Arabic.