"You're such an expat!"

Yeah, Mom, I know. But to be fair, Fatima only comes once a week, and it's not like she's making my bed. She just does the laundry. And the floors. And if my bed happens to be un-made when she comes...just kidding. Plus, she forces me to speak French. Know how to say underwear in French? "Culottes."

The funniest thing about Fatima is that she forgets who speaks which language. Sometimes she tries Arabic with me or she explains her schedule to Alaina in French. Sometimes she mixes the two and confuses us both simultaneously.

I am grateful in these moments to have Alaina, my new but dear roomie and colleague. Alaina speaks Spanish, Japanese, and Arabic. When we're not eating chocolate pudding, we're talking about language. She blogs, too.

Dear Lil Wayne, thank you for the lyrics

I got a bitch named Nina

and Nina's so slutty

'cause she'll do him

and every one of his buddies

MTV Arabia? Score.

In one of the filler ads, a cartoon woman in an abaya strolls past a spice-seller. Her perfume wafts over him. Then we go back to the World Chart Show, where Soulja Boy places first. We also have FOX Series, Fashion TV and a channel that shows only movies with sappy endings. Someone must fall out of a boat and the girl must cry. In Saudi we called these Hallmark movies, because they played on the Hallmark Channel. 

Best of all, though, are the channels named after countries:

Bahrain

Oman

Yemen

Jordan

Sudan

Alaina and I agree that Channel Sudan has the most unique content. Arabic is still gibberish to me, but I imagine the husband was praising his wife's cooking. Wrapped neatly a green head-covering garment, the wife smiled and rocked back and forth, herself overjoyed by domestic bliss.