These last days have been quite hectic with all the work, friends, and family issues.

My parents called me because one of my uncles is coming to visit them for few weeks and told me i had to spend most of my free time at home since noone knows in Algeria and here I already left home to live a single's life ..in Paris.

Now, my parents are Muslim Algerians. In a code that was written centuries ago, even before the first dynosaure appeared, it is written in GOLDEN MARBLE CAPITAL LETTERS that Muslims girls can't leave their parents home before getting married. Even if the above mentioned girl isn't married by 45. A parents' job, or should i say a mother's job isn't finished until she properly marries her daughter, especially the eldest, and attends the baby's birth, helps choosing the name, babysits the baby and finally takes over the parents.

I am 31, still single, nowhere near getting married in the next 5 years, so she's getting a bit desperate because she realises she is nowhere near having a quiet life unbringing my 3 children while my very rich and honorable husband and I work.

Since I left home, they always had to lie to our friends and neighbours because... they never told them I had left home. So I'm either working very late "poor good hardworking girl", or living at my cousins" because office is so far and it would be a 4 hour trip everyday", or attending some kind of professional Muslim network " to improve her chances of having a great job, getting to know more people of our community, especially if he's a lawyer or a doctor, Muslim of course, and coming from a big Algerian family, from either Algiers, Oran, Tlemcen, or Mascara"!

I told Mum I couldn't be there every evening just to make him believe I was still living with them. She got angry saying that I'd rather be with my friends than with my family, that I couldn't even make an effort for something so important to them, that I had forgotten who I am, where I came from, my god, and that I'd probably get married to a Jewish American if I could - is Gabriel a Jewish American?- So I agreed to spend the next three week-ends at home pretending I'm a good Muslim girl. For the rest of the week, I will be in Lyon doing a management training in German.

Meanwhile, all I want to do is have some nice girly drunken fun. Clara called. There is a quizz in an Irish pub tonight. Theme: L.O.V.E ! Can't wait to be there!