Cards and seashells

So I misplaced my calculator and I spent more than half an hour rummaging through my whole flat in search of it (in vain by the way) and I came across these bad boys lying abandoned in a shoe box in a corner shelf of our computer(yes, we still have such an item in our house that no one actually uses) desk. Of course I arranged them. SO much time in your hands when you don’t have a job. 

I know that they are telephone cards but I honestly can’t remember how they were supposed to work. I think you used them in a public booth? You know, scratch the card, dial the digits shown into a public telephone and you get some minutes worth of calls. Oh well, anyway, for some reason, my brother and I used to think it was fun collecting them after somebody would have thrown them away after use (there was a booth right in front of our old place) and we used to stack them up and store them. Picture wise. There were many more of these but I guess they got lost over time and what I found today were the few that stood the test of time. 

Speaking of collecting stuff, I also found these in the same shoe box.            

This is from the first time we collected sea shells when we went to the beach in my home town and then brought them home to show dad. And I kept them as a souvenir to represent ‘the first time’. 

Growing up, I had different phases when it came to collecting things. My dad used to collect stamps when he was younger and he had a book load of them and I had a phase where I would try the hardest to imitate my father – I would try to copy his hand writing or his signature style (trust me, that came in handy later on in high school), the way he spoke, the way he did Math (oh, he was good!) –  and I tried collecting stamps just like him. But unfortunately, try as I may, I just couldn’t get interested in it and dropped it after a while. 

My brother and I were intense Pokemon fans (I can still sing the theme songs by heart) and duh we had the cards. Every Pokemon fan had to have the cards! And battle. And to the victor went the spoils (your opponents’ cards in this case). Fun times truly. We used to collect WWE and cricketer cards too. Football, I developed a passion for during my later teenage years and by then I had become too old for card collection. 

Let’s see, what else did I collect? Oh yes, we used to subscribe to a teen & children’s magazine ‘Young Times’ while growing up. They discontinued a few years back, but I had a whole carton and a half’s worth of collection of it that I would read and re-read whenever I was bored.  Anyone familiar with the publication would know how attached we subscribers were to it. Sadly my mum threw them away while they were shifting places (meh) and I was conveniently away (I was in college at the time). 

I’m sure there are a whole bunch of other things I must have collected – some sane, some not so much- but this should suffice for now I guess. 

What did YOU collect when you were younger? 

Early morning ramble

I’m at the awkward age where half of my friends are getting married, settling down and the other half are getting high as *censored* and I’m just here unemployed and going ‘I want to travel!’ with an empty purse in my hand.

Being unemployed is a chore. You tend to forget you’re supposed to be doing something in the first place, tend to forget you’re supposed to be searching and it’s just easier to curve into a ball and sleep away all your worries. But NO, don’t do it! I can’t say I’ve been giving it my 101 per cent but I have been trying, applying, making contacts, but until then, patience is key.

In the meanwhile, there’s always SO much you can do. For one, I’ve been brushing up on my knowledge, there’s just always so much you forget -and love to forget might I add-once you’re done with your academics(for now) and forgetting the basics and looking like an idiot in front of the interviewer is something I’d like to avoid.

I started learning German, a lil at a time. Why German you ask? Well, when your favourite national football team is Germany, it’s frustrating to watch or read interviews and not know what they’re saying unless there are subtitles on the screen. Ah, I’m always up for learning new languages, just needed ‘a reason’ and there you have it. Now the problem is I don’t have any German friends, so you! If you’re reading this and you’re German, halo!

My mom’s been trying to fix my cooking, and where I come from, if your rotis aren’t round and fluffy, you’re just no good enough for the real world mate. And then I found out that I actually enjoy cooking up stuff that I like eating, although my baking skills leave a lot to be desired.

What else can you do when you’re unemployed and have no money? Books! Read and read. Go to the library or *rolls eyes* use your iPad or whatever tablet/phone – sorry I belong to the dwindling numbers that still cherish the smell of books, actually turning pages and marking the page where you pause with actual physical bookmarkers. But yes, I have caved in and read books online; for example after having a ‘The Hunger Games’ movie marathon (I hadn’t read the books before the movie) I just HAD to know what would happen next. Where was Peta and was he okay? ‘’This is the Revolution, and you’re the mocking jay.’’ Care explaining more?! I couldn’t possibly wait until the next year for the third instalment to release and I couldn’t wait to go outside and get a copy of the book, so I went online and got the e-book. So yes, getting back to the point, read! As much as you can, stuff related to your profession and for pleasure.

And then there are mornings such as these, when I sit in front of the laptop with a cup of tea(or coffee) on the side with my nerd glasses perched on my nose, that I write. My dad inculcated in his children the habit to read from a very early age, and from that stemmed writing. When I was younger, I used to write a lot more than I do now. Short poems, fiction – I used to love making up characters and plots.  As I grew older it gradually decreased and then I more or less put a stopper on it. Don’t get me wrong, I still write (as is evident)  but I guess it had to do with the fact that I realized I wasn’t really all that good; I have no problems in admitting. I still can and do write snippets here and there but nothing life changing. Maybe it had to do something with my school that focused solely on academic excellence and didn’t give us much time or inspiration to do anything more.

I’m at that age where I want to go places, see new things, explore! Having stayed in Dubai (and no, moving to Sharjah does NOT count) all my life and the only trips that we have made as a family is back and forth to my home country, travelling and recording is something I’m looking forward to doing once I have a non-depressing bank account – the only reason I haven’t packed my bags and headed out the door yet.

Getting back on track, being unemployed – daunting, frustrating, depressing.  But hope, sweet hopes still remain. Everything happens in its own time, keep faith and keep moving. Becoming static while being pushed forward by the waves of time is the worst thing that could happen so don’t let it.

I would love to hear more suggestions on what I could try doing during my career hiatus.

Cheers!