I've FINALLY gone ahead and moves my blog to Wordpress, for better or worse.

Had to share this with you - a bit of a conversation between my 8 year old sister and I on MSN (don't worry, she's only got me, my brother and one cousin on there and she doesn't know the password, only I do):

M says:
the computer won't let us talk so much longer :(

M says:
because the bar is getting really small

AKA says:
the bar? what bar?

M says:
the little bar on the side

(*moments later it clicks*)
AKA says:
ohhhh no! Baby that has nothing to do with how long you can talk!

AKA says:
It's called a "scroll bar". See the little triangles at the top and bottom of the bar?

M says:
ya

AKA says:
if you click on it the screen will go up and it will show you what we've written to each other so far

M says:
ohhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

I've been a little absent the past month.

Not only on my own blog, but on others' as well. But the absent-ness doesn't stop there. I've been away from my own mind it would so seem.

I turn *gulp* 25 in 10 (11 if you're on the other side of the world right now) more days, and a lot of the last couple months has been spent wondering how I've gotten to this point in my life without being as honest with myself as I should be. And for some reason or another I've been extra homesick since coming back to school here in Australia for my 2nd semester. I thought it was something to do with having to miss Eid and my birthday this month, but maybe it's not just that.

As much as I've enjoyed my experience here in Oz, I've also come to realize that I've really let a lot of opportunities slip by me in the last couple years when it came to meeting someone to share the rest of my life with. At first I thought I was thinking about all of this because of the pressure to get married that has been ever-increasing since I turned about 20.

But then I slowly came to see that these feelings were coming from within me. Watching a lot of my friends become engaged or married from all the way over here has made me feel that I'm missing out on some part of life. I've always been one to have my head in the clouds and not really pay attention to who's going out with who(whom?), what's the latest happenings in the community and so on. I focused my energy on my family and friends, school and filled the empty spaces with books, movies, TV, and this blog.

I've always had this touch of a Peter Pan syndrome where I thought I could be a kid at heart forever even if the age number kept climbing. I figured that when it was meant to be, the right person would just come along and everything would fall into place as it should. But now, after having done some soul-searching and being more honest with friends and myself I see that I'm lonely in my heart more than anything. Yes, I do miss everyone back home, but that's an ongoing thing that I came to terms with when I moved here in May. But this feeling is of some other nature and it's now just plaguing my days it seems (as they say, ignorance is bliss...so knowledge is annoying).

Since getting back to school in mid-September (around the time of my last post) I've been sick a couple times, had to set up a new apartment, get used to having an extra course on my school plate and just other small adjustments we tend to have to make in everyday life (grocery store no longer stocking Multi-Grain Cheerios...!?).

But in all honestly, I had absolutely nothing to contribute to this blog. Apathy quickly settled in and I didn't even make it to my laptop before I lost interest in even the smallest interesting incident. Every day has been more or less of a routine and a blur while I've been in this cocoon of my own thoughts.


BUT, I am happy to report that I am no longer lost in the foggy mist that is life (yuck, can't believe I wrote, let alone thought, such a line...but nothing else to replace it since it's now almost 2:00am here). I feel much happier these days and am learning AT LAST to be comfortable in my own skin. I've taken some matters into my own hands while still leaving others to God.

I'm taking dear Samosa's advice and am going to be a lot more honest and opinionated - password protected posts be damned - with others and more importantly myself.

Bring on the 25th birthday!

Phew.

That's the only way I can sum up the last month. As quickly as my first semester here in Oz came and went, so did my vacation time back home. I didn't do a lot, but in that accomplished a great deal. I got to spend some much needed time with my family and friends (including meeting some more bloggers), I got my coffee fix a few times over, remembered what it was to have a home-cooked meal again, and just had a lot of laughs.

Ohh and I almost sort of got to see Matt Damon. Almost sorta not really. The Toronto International Film Festival had started while I was home and Jason Bourne himself (ie Matt Damon) was in town doing a press conference for the organization he is now a part of for children called OneXOne (one by one http://www.onexonecampaign.com/). He held a gala in Toronto with Wyclef Jean and Shakira. I happened to be driving downtown at the time when the press conference was going on outside...well, ok, truthfully, what I expect was the press conference for the gala since there was a white tent set up and tons of cameras and photographers with bright lights. Only problem was that whoever was inside had their backs toward the tent part that faced outside but I could tell they were sitting there since the cameras were pointed and flashing in that direction. There was a huge crowd surrounding the outside, stretching to get a glimpse. There was a humongous onexone banner on the building next to the tent...

So yes, I am assuming, with every bit of logic, that Matt Damon was inside and the hand that I think I saw was his. Since I had a car full of relatives I was supposed to be giving a tour of Toronto to, and I was the one driving, I had to smother the desire to leap out the car and go running down the street towards him.

It was him. It had to be.

Please don't burst my bubble. I'm very content in it.

Vacation is over and I'm heading back to the reality that is school. sigh...why can't vacation days last longer than normal ones?

Back to updating when I'm settled in down under...