He's gone. Now you have to be the kind of woman that is generous and smart enough to let a man see his daughters(when he's drug free) without beating him up for his behaviour. If you think it's been hard so far, try that. Excellent wind-up.

What patronising khara.

She should leave them both be and buy some iimaan(recommend ebay).

Yes, I would be. The sooner I know what an irresponsible loser he is the better.

Under the assumption that a wig shop would smell: Uff.

Thank you all. I read the letter the other day and the words, 'unanimous' made me grin all over again. Ngonge, I was not angry. I was at the time of the incident; this was months later. Also I know anger does not produce constructive results. God, I wish I had a recording of it though, lol. Actually no need, I had A4 sheets of questons with spaces ready for answers and I filled it in with the weak answers they provided. Believe you me I took my time with it. It was my turn, they could sit and stew. If the witnesses did not answer a question, I asked over and over again until I got one. Anyway, got little time these days for foruming but I will try and return with a flavour of what it was about, inshallah.

^Cambodia is tame. I should know, I tamed it. LooL. Valenteenah, no way do I intimidate you! I will be compensated but I won't know for another while yet- I can wait, MWAHAHAHA. I will be sure to win an unprecedented amount. Nothing less. Say it with me: XAAAAAAAX

I won. Alhamdullilah. Ain't no use pretending I didn't know I kicked ar*e on the day of the tribunal. Still it was no guarantee of a win. What I knew was that I had prepared very well, spoke honestly, handled the witnesses with dignity, cooperated with the Chairman, destroyed their evidence and advocated with panache. It was a very rewarding experience, all 5 hours of it. By the end of the day, there wasn't enough time in which to make a decision and I was told I would have to wait for 3 months. My jaw fell- my only moment of unprofessionalism. I left feeling rather good, a little smug and happy that it had all gone to plan. I was at a disadvantage as it was up to me to provide evidence and as I had none I just tore into theirs and made them look ridiculous. It was a very rewarding experience. I found out the other day that I had won on both counts- racial and religious discrimination. Somehow they found the time to make the right decision!! :cool:

We're as ugly as each other.

Lool Northerner, u are absolutely determined to be right about this. Mon Dieu. Your loss, I tell you, Thailand is lovely and a good first destination for a first-time Far East visitor. At the very least head south where the Muslims will treat you like a king and the islands are stunning. Tell them I said Sawatika. Val, I don't have a trip planned- I do just pick up and go, lol. I haven't had a disaster alhamdullilah, just some setbacks, like a bus leaving me in the no-man's land between two countries. LooooL. I'll only travel with u if u promise you're not precious about where u sleep or how long u spend on a bus; my record so far -24 hours. Red Sea, we don't mind u and ur sanctimonious contribution cause we know u're as guilty as we are of spending money on selfish causes. It is obvious u care what I do with my hard-earned money, no need to pretend otherwise and still feel u can have an opinion on what I should not do with it. BTW, my home country has more money than she knows what to do with. She might hand a little over to yours if I ask nicely. There are droves of people heading to Somalia this summer are u telling them not to go and instead wire the travel money over so the people in Somalia use it for a good cause or are u saying, 'Bon Voyage'?

Originally posted by Mr. Red Sea: I am saying she should have thought about spending that money in something useful in her home country. or? Originally posted by Mr. Red Sea: why I should I care of what people want to do. One or the other, they're two completely different outlooks.

Northerner, arrogance or not I get that u want to be right about this. Yo, I think about going everywhere. Mongolia's time will come too inshallah.

I say I've been there. Kidding, not yet. When I see Indonesia, I will see Papua New Guinea, inshallah.One half of the island that PPG is on is Indonesian and is called Irian Jaya.

It is no wonder that we have a damaged, limping community when the women who give up give up to breed and bring up gived-up on children. It's the attitude you do what you do with not what you do that counts. In marriage and child-rearing there is a challenge for those that want to succeed and for those that gave up to hide and play safe there is the creation of a home where the mother gave up on herself. A doomed family, I say. Stop making excuses, who told u any of it was meant to be easy? Give yourself until the end of the year to succeed academically. And if that doesn't work, rethink. With your attitude u've already set yourself up for failure and no doubt in a year u will relish the knowledge u were right all along in maintaining u'd fail. It's perverse, get over it. I hated my degree but hated losing more. U are not alone and yr conclusion that women were not made for education is a way of finding comfort in numbers that u have created. We're not buying it. Don't give up on yourself.

Northerner, like I said, u'd rather be right than wrong. People are in love with being right. Originally posted by ThePoint: There is little point in traveling to insular and culturally closed societies such Japan or South Korea. Japan the second richest country on earth barely permits any immigrants. I don't know about you but I generally wanna enjoy myself and learn while travelling. And to keep the 'alien' factor as low as possible. From all that I know about certain parts of Asia - this would be tough. [/QB] Bro, have u been to Japan and Soth Korea? Will u judge entire peoples by their immigration policy? I had a notion that I would not visit South Korea until I met 3 Koreans(2 were friends and one was a teacher of ethics they met along the way) a couple of years ago. I spent 3 days in the company of the most welcoming, caring, curious people. They wrote down their home addresses for me and argued over whom I would stay with when I would visit South Korea. The teacher taught teenage girls back in Korea and whilst on his travels he updated a website on a nightly basis to inform his students back home of his adventures and shared his pictures. Every night he did this and the girls responded with gusto to this window into the world. How many teachers do u know that would that when away from their students? He spoke only a little English and told me on the first night that he had spent his Internet time that night writing about somebody he met called Sheh. My immediate reaction was surprise and discomfort. The following day he told me that his girls loved me, that they wanted to know more about me, my culture, my religion, what I looked like, what could I tell him that they could learn? Initially I felt a little weird about being discussed on a Korean website, which I could not even comprehend, by dozens of teenage girls and a very quiet but determined ethics teacher. Eventually I appreciated the power of the openess, the Internet and stopped being bothered by the suspicion that my picture would end up in cyberspace. I told him about Islam and Somalia and everything else he wanted to know. I never asked what he would do with them but he did take pictures of me and would nod and say, 'Beautiful face'. I realised I was being insular and if he could see beauty in an alien face I could see beauty in his sharing me with his girls through words and pictures. When we parted company, he wrote his details neatly on a piece paper and handed it to me quietly. I unfolded the paper to find his address, numbers and, 'Thanks for you my life is more rich.' And vice very versa. sniff

^LoL. Move into the BB house.

Originally posted by Mr. Red Sea: Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Kashmir, all these places I can understand because we have some important thing in common, religion, but Vietname? Probably, you have seen those old Vietnam war movies, where Rambo (Sylvester Stalone) lights the day light out of the those Vietkongs, I wonder if that is offensive term, vietkongs? Anyways good trip, carry on. Originally posted by Northerner: ^^You are right, the whole of Asia is not worth it apart from the countries you mentioned plus Maybe Pakistan/Kashmir. Its easier for some to just get up and leave :rolleyes: People like to identify with something so that they can be right about it. They will like what is familiar to them(because it is similar to who or what they are and since they like themselves they will like what they see and they can then celebrate being right about being right all along). It's dizzying and insular. Travelling just to be right is just wrong. 'The whole of Asia is not worth it apart..'. Now that is one hell of a sweeping statement unless u have been to the whole of Asia and deemed it unworthy except for some parts, don't u think?

My friends need new bosses. One had a friend stay at work last night even though she didn't have any work to do. Each time she reminded him he said he had nothing for her but she had to stick around in case he did. POWER TRIP OR WHAT? I envy me, girl. And thank you.

^LOL wish I were being dishonest.

^I wasn't complaining. ..I keep getting cancelled on.. I remembered that the older woman in the photos at the hotel on my last night with them waitied outside with me for the bus. The first time I sat with her on the bench I pulled one aching, swollen foot up and massaged it absent-mindedly. Before I knew it the lady had reached out and taken my foot in her hands. I pulled away instinctively but she held on, nodding, smiling and reassuring in Vietnamese. Try as I might to escape, hands waving, foot withdrawing, she kept a firm hold of my foot massaging despite my struggle. I stopped when I saw the futility of it and sat embarrassed, uncomfortable and pleased. This night when the bus wouldn't arrive at its scheduled time, they rang an office and informed me that the bus was running late and I hadn't missed it. Outside on the bench the lady held me in her arms and I just let her, giving in and letting go. Now and then I stood up and paced up and down. Finally she beckoned to me and gestured for me to get on her moped with her. I asked out loud where she was taking me, I had a bus to catch and one of the others who spoke English said the older lady wanted us to go find the bus! She wanted to show me that the bus hadn't left town but was still doing the rounds. I protested that I'd miss the bus if I left the hotel but got talked into getting on the moped with the lady in the end. I had seen the town already, having walked and walked around it but from the back of the moped, slightly exhilarated by the possibility of missing the bus(I was on a tight schedule), zooming past the lanterns, lit-up dragons and the shimmering waters I was seeing things I hadn't before. Now and then she pointed to a building and I nodded in acknowledgement not knowing what it was she wanted me to appreciate about it but appreciating it nonetheless. Finally she stopped by the side of the road and we got off. She walked to a woman selling something by the pavement and waved to the woman to reveal her goods. The seller took the lid off a vessel and in the dark street I peered down and into a sloshing pool of milk. She wanted me to have some milk. Something primeval took hold of me and whisked my breath away. wish I was there

^beautiful, personalise it for us.

Originally posted by Endeavour: Too good to be true! Yep.

Xayawaanaat.

^ I wasn't white and I had big eyes. I was exotic, u gotta try it out sometime. The being different in a positive way, it rocks. I got cancelled on. Hence some time tonight. I suppose I could be doing worse things. Ngonge, the heat underground was nothing in comparison to the humidity in Vietnam. I would wear 3 sets of fresh clothes every day. Frankly there's so much to share that I'm a bit lost so I'll start with the list I started last night and keep that promise. The obsession with looking good Something I wasn't expecting was the Vietnamese women’s never ending talk about physical appearance. If you carry around a little bit of extra weight(or a lot), expect the Vietnamese to let u know about it- whether u care or not is immaterial. If they like the look of you, they will tell u precisely what it is that they like: your eyes, your waist, your legs, your clothes, everything and anything is subject to scrutiny and touch. Oh, yes u will get touched, caressed, hugged, kissed and held if u're liked. I can see the boys starting to get excited, ready to jump on the first flight to Vietnam. Sorry boys, this was strictly girl-on-girl action. So some of u are more desperate to go now. One girl, a healthy size 10-12(UK) with a nice firm body (sorry boys I will stop the torture soon enough), complained that she was too big. To be fair she was in comparison to the others and it was obviously a source of major discomfort in her life. She poked me in my ribs and said she wanted to be like me. By this time in Vietnam, I had red eyes, wore the least flattering of clothes- 3 sizes too big to deal with the heat, ate everything halal that didn’t move and yet she wanted to look like me. I spent some time trying to get her to see what a great body she had but she looked pained by the conversation itself and I dropped it. My tailor, tiny even for a Vietnamese, from whom I learned a lot about Vietnamese culture, whilst getting measured and poked (again) told me she straightened her hair. The sleek, black straight ubiquitous Vietnamese hair more often than not came from a bottle or two. Shocked I peered into her hair while she parted her slick locks to reveal roots(sorry boys, this is turning into a chick post now, bear with, pls) that betrayed her natural less straight her- or so she claimed. I saw straight and black all over. Of course the conversation also turned to whitening creams and their prevalence amongst the community. I found it hard to find cream or deodrant(to whiten your underarms baby) that didn't contain whitening agents. When I walk by stalls in SE Asia, the women push whitening creams into my hands in earnest. Girl, where have u been? Have u seen yr black self, this stuff does wonders for the curse that is black. Get with it, already. All this of course communicated in the language of body. Age and marriage are two other favourite national obsessions of the Vietnamese. This too you will be asked about with frequency. Another surprise was that they absolutely couldn’t approximate an age. The oldest they made me was 19. When I confessed my real age, the men(I kid u not) if single would ask me to marry them, the women would offer me their brother, son, grandson(I still kid u not) and ask that I come live them. This mostly happened in the middle of the middle of the depths of nowhere where they had no idea where I was from- Africa? Eh? And where the people’s skin was almost as dark as mine and their societies matriachal. Women ruled. I was Queen. U better believed I loved it. I can’t tell you the exquisite pleasure I had being amongst their land, their people and their food(greedy one, I). ^ Laxoox Na style. I spent three days going where few other tourists went- accompanied by a Vietnamese- and from village to village even he couldn’t understand the languages spoken; there are so many ethnic groups in Vietnam it’s mind-boggling. Still I never came across a more welcoming, hospitable environment. My face ached from the smiling and my jaw from the dropping. For those 3 days alone, I will die satisfied with my earthly experience(I kid u not). Oh, dear rambled like nobody’s business. Vietnamese Coffee I became an addict. So strong though was this delightful concoction that I would ask for hot water to dilute it or I would attempt death-defying feats if I drank it neat. I drank it hot in the heat, iced in the heat, black, white, gurgled it, slurped it, washed it around my mouth in pleasure and gulped it with gusto. So much did I talk about it that the lovely Vietnamese man showing me around decided to stop at the factory where my brand of coffee was being processed. Oh, what a moment. The air filled with the sweet scent of fresh coffee beans. I died. But managed to buy a kilo before doing so. I’m always prepared. And the Lord indeed has blessed me. Alhamdullilah.

^thanks u two above. Flickr sounds rude but I'll move the pics, maybe at work, I'm moving to another desk tomorrow- my boss called it a PRIME location and did I know people were going mad for my new seat? No, I didn't but I'll take it gladly. To clarify, I am in London at the mo. Vietnam was a while ago but no so long ago as to render the photos yellow with age. Blue, I assumed I'd find black and white film there but I didn't, never when I looked which was usually on a small island or small town- where the inspiration to take black and white took hold. My God, I should go to bed. Have a long week and weekend ahead...