As long as you promise not to laugh
2004-04-05
After much procrastination (I've had this diary for about a month now) and agony, I've decided to just suck it up and make my first entry. So who am I and why am I doing this? "Newgyptian" was a nickname coined for me by a friend when I first entered college. It was supposed to help simplify the ordeal that was describing where I'm from and who I am - a New Jersey girl of Egyptian descent -to new friends and colleagues. Honestly, this doesn't really describe who I am as the matter is both simpler and much more complicated than all that, but it's a starting point. For now, though, let's just say that I've been around, I've seen a few things and that has effected who I am in mostly positive ways.
As for why I am doing this - I'm not really sure. I've recently moved from Philadelphia (yay Philly!) to Cairo (no comment, yet) and am in a totally new situation, and I have a lot of frustrations (and some achievements) that I like to sort out at the end of the day. In general, I have good friends who are there to help me out with that sort of thing, but I'm also trying to work on another problem I seem to have - talking about myself. Over the past year or so I have discovered that I have an almost debilitating aversion to talking exclusively about myself - an aversion only made worse when I became closer to a few people who seem to be capable of only doing that all the time. I do not begrudge anyone their right to be self-centered and selfish, especially not in their twenties, but when it starts making you delusional about who you are, how you are perceived, or how you THINK you treat others then you've got problems. In order to assure that I never reached that state of delusion I started to deflect any sort of conversation about myself, and here I am now almost incapable of handling the slightest interest others might have in me. It's messed up, I know, but it is how it is, and I'm sure I'll come back to this topic some time soon.
So, here I go. Wish me luck.