What is wrong with the world?

With all the crap going on in the world over the last few weeks, it feels like the whole world is in pandemonium. Suicide bombs have been being detonated in London twice, and, most recently in Egypt. Although few people have died, the fear being instilled within the hearts of people everywhere brings to mind scenes eerily familiar of that movie The Siege with Denzel Washington. That movie, which was made before 9-11, involved Arab terrorists carry out several attacks on New York city within the span of a few weeks. The government, lead by Bruce Willis, then seeks to prevent further attacks from occurring by declaring martial law and putting all men within the ages of 15 through 35 in internment camps to try and weed out the remaining terrorists. Now, I promise that all this has a point and I’m not just pulling an “Ebert and Roper” here.

My point is, that as horrible as the recent attacks in London and Egypt have been people cannot lose their composure and begin making harmful assumptions, like those I mentioned before in my previous summary of The Siege... no matter how cool Bruce Willis is. Jumping to harmful conclusions only creates pandemonium and disrupts the flow of society, which is exactly what the terrorists are trying to accomplish. Sadly, it seems as if this is exactly what is happening right now. After the attacks, because Scotland Yard had credible “evidence” that the bombers were of Pakistani descent, the Pakistani government, not wanting to be accused of allowing the attacks to happen, launched a huge crackdown on anyone and everyone who they believed could have played a part in the bombings. Madrassas, conservative Islamic schools were raided, and some 300 “suspects” were arrested. Even more recently, a man was shot dead in the London subway purely because he appeared “suspicious and of Pakistani or Indian decent” (the man turned out to be Brazillian and had no connection to the bombings at all). Do you think that the police would have busted five caps in his head if he were a white man? I seriously doubt that. Right now, I believe that there are a lot of people need to ask themselves whether or not they believe that everyone they’re cracking down on are really crazy militants, or if maybe they might just be searching for someone to blame and take revenge on for the attacks committed on their nation. I absolutely think that a crackdown on suspected militants is absolutely necessary, and those responsible the attacks need to be brought to justice, but making rash decisions without more definite evidence only angers more people and will ultimately only work against your cause.

Also… a little food for thought: Suicide bombs against civilians occur multiple times a day in Iraq, but it seemed like nobody thought it was really a big deal until they actually witnessed it firsthand. I just find it just completely crazy how terrorists think they're such holy martyrs when they're being such bastardous heartless pricks, because speaking as someone who's lived almost their entire life in the Islamic capital of the world, I can tell you straight up that this is not what Islam is about.

P.S. There’s another terror warning for the people here in Saudi Arabia so everyone pray for us all to be safe! :-)

Biology at it's best!

Its an undeniable fact of life. Its something SMU is famous for. SMU girls are hot. Really hot.

Looks like i'm gonna go for the double post today... Writing about SMU in my preivious post has made me remember quite a few things about the past year, and one thing which is impossible to forget about SMU is the seemingly unreal hotness of the girls there. Now, I myself have never been a fan of associating myself with the ultra-busty, ultra-bitchy variety of woman, but I would be just plain lying if I told you that when I leave SMU, I will also be leaving oodles of super shallow, but for some reason, HOT ass girls. So in this episode, we seek to answer some of the questions involving these seductive sirens, more specifically, the question which has plagued the mind of the male SMU students for eons: by what incredible fluke of nature did the girls of SMU get to be so freaking hot!?!

What the girls of SMU lack in personality, they compensate for in areas of well placed body fat and toned muscle. I assure you, the answers to the question posed above can be answered in one simple but important principle of biology: survival of the fittest. I have devised a theory to this below, which I like to call The Trophy Wife Theory (c).

So you have these guys, smart and hardworking, who go to school, graduate, and use the skills they have learned to become successful through business, entrepreneurship, whatever... nature knows no specific profession. When these guys are successful and wealthy, they effectively outcompete their competition in accumulating the resources needed to create and provide for a family, and live a life superior to those he has outcompeted. From a primitive evolutionary standpoint, women find this attractive in the man, regardless of his age (either that, or they just want a piece of that phat bank account, but whatever). The male, being the superior rich bastard that he is, has his pick of the female mating pool. The male, also acting from primal instincts, chooses the mate which he feels would be able to bear him the most offspring and would be most suited to spread his seed around the world (aka the guy is a horndog). This mate, being beautiful, is also stratiegically chosen by the male to show off his dominance to those other males around him. The chosen women then becomes what biologists refer as a trophy wife, the very same from which the name of this theory is derived. The couple then produces offspring, which, because of the good looks of the mother, has a high chance of inheriting the good looks of the mother, while still retaining the "resources" provided by the father. This girl then grows up and is sent to SMU, where she is forever doomed to be bitchy and materialistic. But still hot.



DISCLAIMER:
The above post was made purely in good fun, and, if you read it and somehow took offense, I do apologize. T'was just a joke! Although there ARE plenty of the girls I mentioned before, there are also TONS of girls at SMU who are great and pretty cool too :-)

The down low on SMU!

Some of my friends from SMU ask me how I could possibly consider leaving SMU for UT Austin, a huge behemoth of a school notorious for having students get lost in the system. Well I've thought about it, and as close as I can figure, there are a few key reasons why I decided to transfer. Sure, having old freinds there and a better academic program helped me make my choice, but in the end I don't really think they're what pushed me towards transferring in the first place.

At SMU, I guess you could say I just felt too sheltered. While I was there, I just felt like there was more to college life than SMU had to offer. The people I met there had a lot to do with me feeling this way. Although there are plenty of exceptions, I did see a lot of the stereotypical southern millionaire walking around campus. SMU is often referred to as the Harvard of Texas. A school where the wealthy send their kids to spend four years of their lives recieving a high quality private school education, while being groomed to eventually take take over the family business. Now, I don't quite agree with a label like this because quite frankly, it isn't true.... not entirely anyways. Although SMU was definately NOT just one homogeneous mixture of rich, white people, there really are a good amount that decide to enroll there. For some reason, they just made up a larger proportion of the student body than they do at most other schools. And they really did own the school. It seemed like it was always the rich, overprivelidged people who would always end up being known by everybody. With parties almost every night, elitist social cliques, and all the money floating around in the form of credit cards, Louis Vuitton handbags, and ugg boots, I just felt like I was living an episode of the OC.

So if my parents were spending an assload of money to go to college and learn to succeed in the real world, I figured why not transfer to a school where I could at least feel like I wasn't living in a bubble, isolated from the rest of the world. And so the end result is me going to UT. Hook 'em horns!

work

This summer, besides sitting on my ass, being lazy, and playing golf, I've been working at my old middle school (Dhaharan Junior High woo!) Anyways, since I've been back there, my jobs have ranged from helping teachers grade final exams to textbook inventory to lifting boxes across campus. Sadly, my 7 hour days are usually filled with a LOT more lifting than grading, but I guess it isn't all bad, cause I'm getting exercise (for $6 an hour too!)

Anyways, seeing all the enormous amounts of excess crap my school has lying around in storage boxes, i've come to realize something. I've never come across a school that has TOO much stuff. Too many computers, too many books, too many desks... more than enough to supply two schools with materials enough to last at least a full school year. At $61 a barrel, ARAMCO just isn't that concerned about recycling or conserving its school supplies. Although they do donate a good portion of their "old" or unused supplies, from what I've seen, they could afford to give just a lil bit more.

So sometimes people ask me... why is my blog "shallow" and why don't I write about all my emotions?


Truthfully, I just don't see the relevance of writing about all my emotions, or, as what seems to be a recurring theme in a lot of blogs, how depressed I am. In fact, really dislike overly emo people. Like seriously... It seems that almost every day I run into some sap who "can't go on anymore" because their "heart is throbbing with heartbreak" or some crap like that. Why do these people feel the need to go out and broadcast this to the world over AIM or however else? Sometimes, it's like they just want attention or people to pity them, which is sad in itself.

First of all, for most people, being all emo because you feel like "the world is closing in on you" or something is not even true in the first place. A lot of people feel like crap because they can't see most of the good things in their life, only choosing to focus on the bad things which happen to them... If you do this, of course you're going to feel like shit... so just don't do it!

Secondly, if for some inexplicable reason, the problems of someone's life really do cause the world to come crashing down, then what is the point of broadcasting your problems/emoness to people over the internet? I really believe that writing about your innermost feelings is something that should remain private for all people. This is why I disliked blogs before I actually got one. In all seriousness, if someone's problems are bugging them so much, then they should go out and do something to solve them, rather than hoping that someone will come and sympathize with you, which, although may help at the time, won't solve anything at all.

Now, I admit that we all have our moments where we feel like crap... I get depressed all the time, but that's just life. I seriously doubt that any one person is being singled out by the cosmic forces of the universe, and is doomed to spend the rest of his or her life in utter misery.


And now i'm off to play some golf! Toodles!

"What is your badge number?"

Daaaaaamn its July! It's been almost two months since I've left Dallas for summer break... I guess time really flies when you're sitting on your ass all day. And i've still got two whole months left till UT starts on August 31st :-) I've come to terms with my decision to go to UT Austin. I really think I made the right decision, and I'm really looking forward to going there. It should be a good time.

Anyways, I had an interesting experience the other day. Tyler, you will appreciate this. A friend and I went atop a hill in the jebels at 2 AM to smoke a little hookah and look up at the stars. Apparently, my truck, alone in the parking lot, appeared sketchy, and the ARAMCO police pulled up to it and started scoping it out. Now, we saw all this from our vantage point on top of the hill, and just laughed it off, since we weren't doing anything wrong. But then the cops got out of their car and started checking the sides of my car and shining flashlights inside... Anybody that knows ARAMCO police knows that this is unusual, especially for them. Usually they're so lazy that all they do is sit around and drink their tea and give you a hard time if they think you're a teenage driving without a license. Anyways, two more cops came, and pretty soon, I counted four cops chilling around my car. By this time, I was starting to get a little nervous, as I had never seen security make this big of a deal out of something before. So Hammad suggested that we go down and talk to them, and hopefully just tell them that we weren't causing trouble.

So we went down to them. As soon as one of the popo saw us, he started walking towards us with his flashlight.. They whole time I was thinking "ohh damn, I'm in trouble." But apparentl not... The reason that all the cops were around was because apparently, one of the cops, in all his infinite wisdom, had tried to drive his Chevy Caprice into the desert, and had gotten himself stuck in the sand. He had just radioed in for his buddies to come help him get out, and the reason they were looking in my car was because they saw how unbelieveably jacked my truck was and were looking for a towing cable in the hopes that I would come back and be able to pull them out. It turned out to be a fun night and all, Hammad and I felt bad that the reason the cop was stuck was probably because he was looking for us, so we stayed and helped until we got him out. All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good time just hanging out with the popo at 2AM, but its still pretty sad that this is one of the most exciting things that I've seen this summer.