On my Job, Jongar, Settling in and Such

I have been in Dubai for a total of 5 months now and am still enjoying every minute of it. I started settling in by renting my own beautiful apartment with a view. I would've called it home, if it weren't for minor distractions like vacationing back in Jordan, or being shipped immediately afterwards to Saudi, the land of the empty as I like to call it.

I wouldn't have gone back to Jordan if it weren't for a family emergency, which usually either means weddings or funerals. Thank God it was the first. When I came back I was reluctantly shipped to Saudi for the equivalent time of my vacation as if I was being punished for vacationing so early within my career.

Boss: You're going to Saudi
Me: Emmm. Oman is nice this time of year.
Boss: Hehe, no you have to go. Saudi is nice.
Me: Bahrain?
Boss: Hehehe
Me: Ok ok between me and you, Qatar, but that's my final offer.

I was negotiating a lost cause

When people ask me what I'm doing in Dubai, I tell everyone that I'm a belly-dancer or strip-dancer, depending on the audience and their threshold for juvenile crap. That makes people nag more, not catching the drift that I don't like to talk about my job for the sake of the healthiness of the relationship I am trying to maintain. It's not one of those common jobs that you can mouth in one word like doctor or architect and everyone would go "Aaaaaaaahh"

I should've studied Physical Education and became a gymist or something.

When I talk to Jordanians about my job, I tell them I am Jongar, in reference to the fact that I am a one-man army and hence a powerful being in Jordanian slang (Jongar is the Arabic version of a Japanese anime called "Astro Ganga"of a giant robot fighting off invading aliens, that we as kids of the eighties grew up watching and loving)

As a kid I scribbled myself in harsh crayon markings next to Jongar, and when asked to write a composition about summer vacations, I would talk about my "friend" Jongar, and was known to kick my nursery mates' asses all the time screaming "Jongaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar" as if that justifies it.

Me: Jongaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar (all the while beating the shit out of a bawling kid)
Kid: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Nursery Teacher(pulling me from the ear): Sami how many times have I told you that you are not Jongar? And Kid is not evil alien from outer space ..
Me(flailing arms wildly around and singing the opening theme of the cartoon): Ow! Ow! Jongar, Jongar al-batal il-jabbar (Jongar, Jongar the mighty hero).

I wish Nursery Teacher would see me know, for she will undoubtedly realize that she was wrong all along and that I am none other than:

Jongar, Jongar, al-batal il-jabbar.