My New Toy!

Yay, for fun new toys!! :) My girls at school were extremely happy today as I unveiled my latest purchase and apparently the key to being "cool" in Kuwait youth society - owning a Blackberry. LOL I had expressed interest in buying one of these during the last couple of weeks and was met literally everyday with "Have you got one yet?" "Miss!! When are you getting your Blackberry?" and then when I brought it to school today, squeals of "Oh my goodness Miss, you finally got one! So nice and cool!" and "Oh Miss, you are so Kuwaiti now!" I just laughed, because even though I did indeed think it was a cool little mobile device, I really only wanted one to be able to instant message for free my friends and family who have Blackberries back home! The added "coolness" factor actually surprised me. When I took it out and showed the girls, they were very excited and had to check it out and was asked, "Miss, can I have your PIN!?" the entire day. Obviously, I had to say no, but it was super cute and meant a lot to see them so excited for my new purchase and to "add" me to their network. LOL :) I love these girls! :) They have made sure I know the locations of the best Blackberry accessory stores in Kuwait and some have even offered to take me there whenever I need to go. :)

Now, as you can see in the pic below, almost EVERY girl in my school has one of these little beauties. We thought it would be fun to take a pic of us and our Blackberries! :) Mind you, this is just ONE class of grade 9 girls. The other 3 classes of girls all have their own as well.

There are 19 girls plus me in this pic.....I should have bought stocks in

Blackberry, that's for sure!

I have discovered that it truly is a status symbol over here. I recently had them write a journal entry on what distinguishes a Kuwaiti girl from say a Saudi, Iraqi or Bahraini girl. Almost all 97 entries (I teach 4 grade 9 English classes) mentioned that the way to pick out a Kuwaiti girl in a crowd is by seeing their decked-out Blackberry attached to them, as well as their RayBan sunglasses and A&F shirts. It was shocking really! Then when I did a poll in class of who actually owned these new mobiles (they don't refer to them as cell phones over here), almost every hand in every class shot up. Apparently this is the biggest must-have item in a Kuwaiti girl's accessory bag. This of course just makes me laugh, because for those of you who know me, you know very well that I am not and have never been "cool", "trendy" or owned anything that was "hip" and "cool" at the right time. LOL :)

Alright, with all that said about the importance of these to Kuwaiti youth and the discovery of my instant new notch on the popularity pole, I absolutely LOVE my new Blackberry! I can see very easily why they have the nickname, "crackberry" - I literally can't put it down. The best feature about it is the Blackberry Messenger. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, it's a sweet instant message feature that is specific to Blackberries and is also known as "pinging". It's free between Blackberry owners, no matter where in the world you are! Definitely a plus, as some of my friends and family back in Canada have them, therefore the text messaging costs will not require the sale of my arms or legs! :)

So really, the only question that now remains is...........why did I not get one of these things sooner!?!?