Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Adieu, Farewell, Aufwiedersehen, Goodbye


Life is full.Full of good things, bad things, surprises, events, encounters and adieus.
I would classify the adieus as the 2nd worst thing after death.
God has been so merciful-so far-with me as to spare me death of people I love.
Uptil now I think I only mourned one person.To compensate for that my life has been an endless chain of adieus.
But that’s fine I mean considering the alternatives.
They say God provides you with the amount of strength necessary to endure your pain. So strength is proportional i guess.
Even though you accept some hardships of life goodbyes remain bitter.
I usually try to look at the positive side of things, yet I failed to find one positive aspect when parting with dear ones.
While some people don't even leave as little as a fingerprint in your life, others hold a significant place no matter how distant.
But the sad thing is that no matter how much you promise to keep in contact- and you mean it at the time- you email or sms for a few months then you can call it a real goodbye.
Only a memory remains, a sweet feeling or maybe a faint smile when you accidently see the name while flipping through the address book.
But life goes on and thx God facebook is "IN" so you can somehow keep track of these people, see their smiling faces amongst other friends, get a sweet bitter feeling; sweet cause your friends are fine, smiling....amongst friends and bitter cause you art not in these pictures.
Once i decided not to get attached to people to protect myself from situations as such.But it's a built-in device that you cannot uninstall.
In this context i would like to say to Gazzar i miss your being around and to Usama i miss you allready, to my friends back home OH MY GOD guys it's awfully weired without you here.
To my current friends here in the UAE let's enjoy what's left!
Luv u all

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Celebrate diversity


Moroccans are prostitutes! Russians too! Philippions…Men? Gay! Women? Sex oriented! Arabs in general are pigs! Germans are Nazis? Palestinians are crooks
Xyz are filthy, blablas are racists.
These are modern age stereotypes surrounding us… suffocating us!
We prejudge and are also getting prejudged and sadly not only because of nationality.
Religion and skin color are also important players here.
Black is filthy while white is neat; Muslims are fanatics if not terrorists.
How sad! On one hand we claim that we are a modern world that we have advanced, while on the other hand we really act like Middle Ages.
We became one world with different colors and backgrounds.
So much we learn from each other starting from food till astronomy.
Why do we allow ourselves to eat Chinese food yet make fun of them?
Do we even know how much we alienate each other by these convictions?
I doubt or else we would have given it another thought.
No one likes to be undermined especially for reasons that are not only groundless and superficial but also out of ones hands.
Political views are also common ground for hatred.
Listen, debate, be openminded about it.
You do not have to accept other’s opinions if you don’t like them or if you have views of your own, just accept the fact that people ARE different, and could have different angles of looking at things.
To cut it short, embrace, learn from, and celebrate Diversity.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Appreciate who you are!


This is a thought about who i am, my roots and culture.
The reason why i am writing it is that i discovered new stuff during my stay here in a cosmopolitan like the UAE.
The last one and a 1/2 years have proved very educating indeed at least this is the way i view it.
I am sure lots of people would argue and disagree that but hey it's a free country, where arguing and debating is more than welcomed.
Back to my original thought what i learned lately.
Being graduate of a german school and being tought by germans, i (and mind u it's not an individual case all of my peers were)infatuated by the west in general and Germany in particular.
To us western Culture signified freedom of opinion, technology, honesty, fashion, lots of beautiful stuff that comes with being a 1st world country.
While 3rd world was ....daaaa lots of crappy stuff that is labeled under 3rd world .
Anything arab was shameful and weak while foreign was perfect.
I remember my visit 2 Paris many years back, and we know how Paris is filled with Abeyas and kanduras in summer. That was the only european country i disliked merely because of the intense presence of gulf arabs there, which was a reason for my annoyance during the trip.Imagine someone practically hating the champs-elysee.
Ofcourse this could be categorized as 3o2det khawaga, my upbringing contributed to this infatuation, while there was nothing to counter attack my despise to- i am embaressed to say it-: US..
Whether it was years that wised me up or interacting with both cultures simutaneously and in real life(4get school that was fiction) that drastically changed my opinion i really can't tell but fact is that now i learned to appreaciate my culture and roots.
Suddenly kanduras and abeyas don't bother me at all, in fact i enjoy watching Emiratis proudly and gracefully wearing their national dress.
Let's face it we are not bad actually we posess many qualities that we can be proud of.
We still-and please forget abt mainorities- have family ties that could rarely be found elsewhere.To us the mother is sacred.Males being protective of their sisters, wives etc..
I also believe that we posess warmth and kind heartedness that is remarkable.
We stick together in bad times(please exclude governments).How many times did u get unlimited support from your friends??
We deffinetely don't lack history nor culture.
i can go on for hours enlisting our merits but that's not the point here.
The point is admitting that we have mistakes; working on them is the best scenario. Realistically speaking maybe we will have to live with them for a while.
Still, and despite our mistakes we should appreciate who we are and where we come from.
Please let's be proud of ourselves and what we have achieved.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

CINDERELLA’S GLAS SLIPPERS


"I wish I could -- I wish I could -- "; she was not able to speak the rest, being interrupted by her tears and sobbing.”
Poor cindy was denied going to the fancy party, moreover she had nothing to wear(a situation we face on ongoing basis?!?)
But hey …..
“Her godmother only just touched her with her wand, and, at the same instant, her clothes were turned into cloth of gold and silver, all beset with jewels. This done, she gave her a pair of glass slippers, the prettiest in the whole world. Being thus decked out, she got up into her coach; but her godmother, above all things, commanded her not to stay till after midnight( aslaha kanet men 3eila mo7afza) telling her, at the same time, that if she stayed one moment longer, the coach would be a pumpkin again, her horses mice, her coachman a rat, her footmen lizards, and her clothes become just as they were before.
So lovely girl went after all, enjoyed herself even danced with a handsome prince and the rest u know, anyways, midnight came, she ran, lost her slipper etcccc…
And the story ends when the princes’ soldiers ....
“He obliged Cinderella to sit down, and, putting the slipper to her foot, he found it went on very easily, and fitted her as if it had been made of wax
And this was confirmation enough that this was the hot gal from last night’s dashin’ parteee
Helloooo what was Cinderella’s shoe size yatara??? I bet some unique non reoccurring size that the slippers only fitted her feet mmmm…because as we all know that ya3einy the princes’ men tele3 bouzhom till they found “Z Girl”
Yala atary kollo 3and el aganeb Kaman saboun
Still we have 2 admit that it's sweet, heart warming tale but unfortunately real life does not include a fairy granny capable of turning crappy clothes 2 designer dresses and no princes willing to date anthing less than top models
Happy ever afters are kinda rare nowadays but hey am not complaining, just wish life was somehow different.
Teenage fantacies didn't realy comply with real life if u ask me and whome 2 blame...cinderella?
maybe...Snowwhite? possible...my own choices!?! yeah that's more like it.
actually it's a combination of all the above plus some mediocre romantic novels that also had a saying in my sanity...but still eshta...i am a survivor hope 2 remain one and will still hang on 2 my teenage fantacies; they did not add value so what? screw value ...at least they keep me happy for a few minutes( maybe hours?) every now and then.