TISK is here :)

So excited to Blo2 this breaking newz ...

The heavenly TISK (Tia Iskander) just landed on our dusty Earth ... Hallelujah :)))

Mabrook to the beloved FISK & MISK :)

When I say '" I'm back " ...

I’ve been away for some time. The past few weeks have been among the most agitated in my life so far. Agitated is really the word … Roaring winds, blinding dust, deafening storms, crashing waves ……. I could have written so many things, but it’s just too agitated for me to write. May be I am not the dramatic writer who would write best during his worst times... not yet at least.

Anyway now that the smoke is going down, or may be I’m just getting used to it … I want to say “I’m back”!

“I’m back” ... It should be a relieving thing to say … but it’s very puzzling sometimes.

There is always this fear that back is backward, the fear that back is a move with a minus sign. I don’t believe this is a rule but it certainly puts a tough question to answer for anybody making a back decision.

I must have ready answers for all the questions “I’m back” implies. This is often a reason that keeps you from having something back to your life, or resuming something you were once doing and stopped, or returning to a place you left.

To whomever ...

To whomever I said before you have to go back home “Egypt” to raise your kids there, where they would have an إنتماء and a هوية ; I apologize and I say it out loud “GATNI SETTEEN NEELA” :-(

... فمع أنه

فمع أنه لا يزهر التين

ولا يكون حمل في الكروم

يكذب عمل الزيتونة

والحقول لا تصنع طعاما

ينقطع الغنم من الحظيرة

ولا بقر في المذاود

فإني أبتهج بالرب

وأفرح بإله خلاصي

الرب السيد قوّتي

ويجعل قدميّ كالأيائل

ويمشيني على مرتفعاتي

فأغني على آلاتي ذوات الأوتار

19-17 : 3 حبقوق

Normal = Status Quo

Now I am thinking in a Word document … mind not very clear … thoughts not organized … no sequence prepared … no conclusions planned …

Normally as soon as I come back from a vacation or trip, I am required to resume my normal life that was briefly interrupted. I have to resume living my normal morning, my normal evening and my normal nighttime … living my normal weekend and my normal Monday and normal Tuesday and normal Wednesday … my normal job duties and normal communications with my colleagues; my normal pastimes and normal relations with friends and people around …

At this point where I am slowly letting myself to get absorbed again into my usual “normal”, sometimes I am able to have an outside look at my normal day-to-day; and every time I do that, many questions arise. Questions about these normal routines that occupy my time and my mind and my life.

Sometimes I ask myself about the reason I do some usual routines. I ask myself when did I start doing this or that; when has it become part of my normal life. For some things I wonder if I was the one who consciously included it to my life; or was it a need or a necessity or circumstances that let it into my life. Questions about how much do I like one normal routine or another, and how does it compare to my ex-normal life back in Egypt. Things that I would like to include in my “normal” routine but can’t get used to do; and habits that I got used to but that I don’t like.

This is the time where I feel the most an urge for a life restructure and for a change in my normal routines. But the human tendency for stability and steadiness and the normal life that imposes itself once the hours and the days start their constant flow, strongly oppose the impulsive urge for change and reorganization.

Life order contrasts with life change and reform. It’s similar to the basic conflict in politics between parties seeking to conserve social order and others seeking social change. Hmmm … unluckily democracy and elections are not applicable in my case. Until now, it has always been the status quo (الأمر الواقع) that says the last word every time.

This is not all there is

This is not all there is
This is the preschool
The tryout
The practice workout
The warm-up lap
The staging area
The dress rehearsal
This is the temporary residence
The camping tent
The womb
The glimpse
Only the seen, the heard, the imagined
The visible tip of the iceberg
The vapor which appears then vanishes
This is just the beginning
This is not all there is …

And as if that weren't enough ... !

When they aren't asking questions
They're making suggestions
And when they're not doing one of those
They're either looking over your shoulder or stepping on your toes
And then as if that weren't enough to annoy you
They employ you.
Anybody at leisure
Incurs everybody's displeasure.
It seems to be very irking
To people at work to see other people not working,
So they tell you that work is a wonderful medicine,
Just look at Firestone and Ford and Edison,
And they lecture you till they're out of breath
And then if you don't succumb they starve you to death.

Ogden Nash

Who Runs Your World?

Do I really have that much free time??!! Mmm … This was not done on office hours anyway :) … and I really liked the survey … It raised again these human diversity thoughts that I’ve been wondering about lately.

Here it is … BBC presented this program and launched an online survey for people to send their comments and opinions about who runs their worlds …

I’ve read the comments. But what’s more crazy than this is that I was not as much interested in answering the question myself as I was by the diversity of the answers! It's overwhelming! Note that more than 90% of the people who commented are from the UK; so the diversity is even within the same society.

So I’ve read them just to compare them and ponder on the differences between people … and when the idea of blo22ing the thought came across my mind I decided to sort them out (the comments) and tag them :) … Not that I care if it is gonna be read by anybody on The Blo2; but I found it interesting enough to me anyway.. So if you started reading and you decided it's boring already just press Back or Alt+F4, I don't mind.

All what’s after bulleted points is copied from the online survey. The headings are mine.


Me! … answer number#1 ! ... Ego proves the center of the universe!!

• I run my life. I don't consider my government to hold any authority over me. Whatever power the government has over me is minor and truly not very significant in terms of what really is important in life.

• I run my world! Everything I do in my life is my choice. I choose to go to work to earn money to pay my bills to keep on the right side of the law to respect my family and friends and to keep learning. As long as I have choice, I run my life!

• I run my world, followed by money as a close second.

Media, Companies, Governments, and all those valid conspiracy theories:

• The media runs a good portion of the world.
  
• Companies like the major soft drinks manufacturers and petrochemical producers hold governments in the palm of their hand. Governments in turn keep us all firmly beneath their thumb or heel, depending on naive beliefs in freedom and democracy to gain compliance from an accepting majority.
  
• The simple truth is that the corporations run the world.
  
• Robert Murdoch and the Carlyle Group
  
• International agencies (World Bank, IMF, etc.) or powerful foreign governments (US, EU) control the lives of most people on this planet.
  The multinational corporations do. Politicians have a very much peripheral influence in these modern times when everything is sacrificed to the goal of maximizing profits for the larger companies, their owners and shareholders, no matter what the cost to the environment or human quality of life is.

Money … and the Rich … a common answer

• It's safe to say that money runs my world.
  
• Money or lack of.
  
• The world is run by the people with the most money
  
• The wealthy throughout the world are controlling and choking the life out of humanity.

Family,Wife,Kids … another common answer:

• It is my family.
  
• Our wonderful three month old daughter, without a doubt.
  
• A power-sharing pact between mum and girlfriend
  
• I used to think it was me, then I got married and it was my wife, then my son was born and now it's him!

Sexes:

• Right now I would have to say men. Women haven't really had an equal opportunity to influence the world such as man has. Still today men are continuing their dominance in the world.
  
• Women, pure and simple. When I was a child my mother ruled me, and before I had my child my wife ruled me. Now my daughter rules me. As far as my memory of my family history goes, it was my grandmother who ruled my dad, and my other grandmother who ruled my mom and her dad.
  
• The three 'm's: Men, money and media.
  
• Thank god women don't rule the world.
  
• Women obviously rule the world; it is clear from the number of men who do not realize that that they are doing a good job.

Nature … would make some sense these days:

• Nature runs my world. I try to respect and adapt to the environment. Katrina shows that no matter how much we try to bend the environment to our needs, nature still has the last say.
  
• Tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, global warming and other natural disasters should make it clear that humans control over the conditions of their own existence is very limited

GOD!! ... Only ONE out of more than seventy answers !!

• It is Jesus Christ my God.

Our own tragedies rule the world:

• Long term illness coupled with intolerance from our so-called "society" seems to run my world.
  
• My world is run by the nexus of corrupt bureaucracy, politicians and businessmen.
  
• Three things run my world, the bills, my wife and my kids. As a middle class family the bills are always more than we can earn, but we survive with 2 full time jobs.
  
• I think it's the lawyers and judges who run it. They hold power over everybody, bar none. A judge or a magistrate can order child support to the tune of half of your earned income; they can separate you from your child, and make you into a marginalized father and second class citizen all in a blink of an eye. And lawyers are, of course, their cohorts.

Fear, Fate, Hatred rule the world

• Fear runs my world.
  
• Chance, some would say fate, runs the world.
  
• It seems as if hatred, greed and stupidity rule the world

Sarcasm rules the world!! :)

• Isn't it a real pity that all the people who know how to run the world properly are just too busy cutting hair and driving taxis!
  
• Sad as it seems, my 11-month-old yellow lab. My wife and I do not have any children (yet!) so we decided to give it a test run with a fur-kid. She basically runs the house and our lives. I never understood how people can be so obsessive about pets, until we got Buffy. We have become that annoying couple who can talk of nothing but "our little girl". We try not to, but I can understand, finally, how much more children truly rule parents lives.
  
• This is actually a meaningless question.

Where is your candle?

They asked me where is my candle..

I said my candle has gone off; the strong wind blew it off just after it started to light brightly. The glow didn't go far when suddenly it was gone. I couldn't fight back the wind, neither did my candle. It was just blown off in silence. if u really want my candle light to shine again, please lead me on to a burning fire, to light up my candle.

~~~~~~

They asked me again where is my candle..

I said my candle was stolen while I was walking by lighting the dark street with it. I was trying to light things up for everyone, but a selfish soul took it away to capture the light just for itself. I am looking for my candle, I miss my flame. If you really want my candle light to shine again, please find the thief who took away my candle, and punish him for all the dark that came.

~~~~~~

They asked me again where is my candle..

I said my candle melted... Yes it burnt all the way through and was all melted down now. It shone for a long time and led others for a good way to go.. It melted because it was burning constantly, everyday and every hour. If you really want my candle light to shine again, please remember the times when it was glowing brightly, and the road will lighten up at once. I am sure all the light didn't go in vain

~~~~~~

They asked me again where is my candle..

I said I don't know, I never noticed my candle, I never knew its light was that obvious. How did u know about my candle? How could u see the flame? I didn't care if it was lit or not, and now u ask me about my candle? I can't help you my friends, I have no clue about my candle. If you really want my candle light to shine again, please search for it with me and help me make it light for once.

~~~~~~

They asked me again where is my candle..

Believe me when I say I never owned a candle, never held it in my hand, never knew I should have a candle and never thought of fetching for one. If you really want my candle light to shine, please get me one and teach me how to light it up!

~~~~~~

Where do you keep your candle?!

~~~~~~

Lillian Girgis

Beautiful Day!!

ياللا بينا ياللللللا نقضـــي يوم جميــل
دا انهــارده واللـلا يوم مالوش مثيـــل

... It makes me laugh too :D

This little refrain Mama used to sing it to me every morning on our way to the pre-school nursery of Mme.Alice across the street in El-Daher before she goes to work… that makes me 3-4 years old then!!!
I am amazed how fresh and clear the picture of this little daily walk stayed in my memory. We always laugh so much when we remember it :)

But this morning, just like every morning since many months ago, I wake up bored, lazy, sluggish and uninterested… think Garfield in his worst Monday.
And suddenly while getting off the bed, I find the very old morning jingle popping in my mind unexpectedly.
It just made me reflect for a second why my daybreak mood and spirit is becoming so apathetic. Why don’t I sing my song every morning?? ...

Bolitics: Presidential Elections

This Washington Institute article is one of the best commentaries I've read lately about the Presidential Elections. This analysis is written by an egyptian political analyst for the USA's Washington Institute which is a very recognized political research establishment that is solely focused on the Middle East. Ahmed Nazif and Osama ElBaz and many others lectured and posted articles there.

As he mentions in the last few lines, the November parliamentary elections will be practically more critical and contested. The problem is that our parliamentary elections are historically very misregulated and chaotic... Hope the people won't forget about Kefaya after the presidential elections are over to their dismay; and the egyptian judges won't take long vacations after September to participate in parliamentary elections monitoring! I think the dormant political parties would have better chances to come into the picture in the parliament and start being heard from there on...

Blueberry Muffin Cake

I am delighted to post on this memorable day that my very first successful Blueberry Muffin Cake is just out of the oven in a perfect shape .. color .. softness .. and taste :D

حلوة يا بلدي

I've been out of homeland for only one and a half years, so may be it's too early for this ... But I see it coming anyways ... and I already feel most of the words of this song.

We had an amazing dinner gathering today at Maged and Katia's place. It was simply wonderful. It's just hard to say how much I love those guys and their company... Maged and Katia surely deserve a post only about them :) ... Anyway, today we laughed, ate, talked, played and sang songs... Lovely songs from home. And one of them was this one ...

كلمة حلوة و كلمتين حلوة يا بلدي
غنوة حلوة و غنوتين حلوة يابلدي
أملي دايما كان يابلدي اني ارجع لك يا بلدي
وافضل دايما جمبك على طول

و ذكريات كل اللي فات فاكرة يا بلدي؟
قلبي مليان بحكايات فاكرة يا بلدي؟
أول حب كان في بلدي مش ممكن انساه يابلدي
فين أيام زمان قبل الوداع

كنا بنقول إن الفراق ده مستحيل
و كل دمعة على الخدين كانت بتسيل
مليانه بأمل ان احنا نبقى موجودين
في بحر الحب على شطين

فين حبيب القلب يا بلدي كان بعيد عني يا بلدي
كان بعيد عني يا بلدي وكل ما باغني بافكر فيه
قول يا حبيبي انت سايبني و رايح فين؟
أجمل لحن ده حنغنيه احنا الاثنين
يا محلى كلمة بلدي في غنوة بين صدرين

Elabreviate!

To be understood, elaborate ... To be heard, abbreviate!

http://one-line.blogspot.com

Scrambled

- Write something down.
- I don't have anything to write.
- But it’s time to post. You’re loosing the new Blo2’s momentum.
- I am not going to make up something just to write a post.
- Just pick a random interesting thing from the top of your head and write about it.
- Nothing’s on top. Everything’s just scrambled there in my head.
- Ok, what were you doing the last couple of hours?
- I was meeting with Sameh and Mina to prepare for Friday... We had one of those fights! Nothing unusual… being who we are; we normally disagree then quarrel then scream at each other and all… then cool down at the end and get things done. It was funny actually being so typical (the fight) :)
Speaking about typical. I have to say I have always been receiving repeatedly reports from different sources agreeing on me having such an irritating way in discussions!!
I find that particularly frustrating because I love discussions and arguments and debates more than life; and almost all the people I love in life either hate getting into debates or can’t stand me when arguing! ... That’s so bad. Life is unfair.
BLO2!

Boredom

Warning: This is a very boring post

I have always had this tendency to analyze, trace reasons and try to look at things from outside. And now that I am bored I want to track down my thoughts about Boredom … and since we’ve started The Blo2, then I’ll blo2 them down as well.

You can guess already that this post has a high potential of adding to your boredom … first because it’s about boredom ... and second because I am in the analyzing mood, which always proved to be very boring to people around me.
However I mentioned before in the welcome post comment I am not blo22ing the boredom thoughts for you anyway.

Now to boredom . I think it’s unarguably the MOST common feeling on the planet today … It’s like the default feeling of our era … in the sense that unless I am something else then I am bored.
The funny thing I discovered is that “boredom” is a relatively new word to the English dictionary!! Only 100-150 years ! … And they added it then just to have an English word for the French “ennui” :) … and since Arabic lacks Internet documentations so I couldn’t find similar info about “malal” or “zaha2” etc … but my guess is that they won’t be too old.

Also as far back in time as eye-witnesses can tell me, boredom wasn’t that common in 50’s or 60’s …Definitely not like now. It’s the trait of nowadays.

I tried to think of definitions and found few on the web that made a lot of sense to me. Boredom is a state … a state that a person may run into as a reaction to a stimulus. The boredom stimulus may be an active one such as routine and repetition of events that is perceived by the person as boring. Or the stimulus might be a passive one which is basically a lack of interesting and entertaining stimuli (things to see, hear or do, physically or intellectually); and this lack will lead you to getting bored.

Mmm ... bored of getting nowhere?? I have to make it clear that you shouldn’t expect to reach anywhere when I am in the analyzing mood :)

I am not writing about boredom to reach solutions … I have always tended to put blames when analyzing problems... So for the sake of throwing blames, I will blame negative perception and lazy passiveness for now.

Negative perception is the main catalyst for the active boredom stimulus, the routine and repeating events. I sometimes feel bored even while being very busy at work. I often wake up extremely bored just from thinking that I will do the same boring stuff again for another day/week …but this because of perceiving what I am doing as dull which is not always the case and perceiving my day as uninteresting which is not a fair way to describe it.
The challenge here is to decide to think of what you are doing as interesting and not to sleepwalk through the day, to take everyday as a unique adventure and that is a decision to be taken with the morning shay be laban. It is an attitude.

Lazy passiveness is the medium where the passive boredom stimulus grows. In English … I will get bored because nothing entertaining is happening or nothing interesting to do or to watch or to hear … I accuse me of being passive and lazy for waiting idly for something to come and take the role of a clown to entertain me or somebody to come and tell me some jokes or suggest me some things to do to fill my time.
If you ask Mee, that’s the fruit of TeeVee!!

Another way to look at passiveness, that was written on The Duke’s blog, Nevine wrote about people who would get VERY bored and annoyed of waiting for somebody who is late. I will paste the words … While you are waiting for someone or something, you have the option to choose what you will make of the waiting experience. You can actually just sit there and wait; you can choose to walk away (not a good idea if it's your wife/fiancee - somewhat suicidal actually); you can choose to do something completely different to fill the time. You can choose to be angry, and anxious, or you can choose to meditate, and relax. But what you make of the waiting experience is entirely up to you - not the person you are waiting for.
I think same relates to almost all free time … you have the option to choose what you will do with the free time experience … you can passively give up to the lack of entertainment and get bored .. or you can crack your fingers ( no names here :D )

I am terribly bored of writing and of this analytical mood … Time to get out of it if I want to have any chance of you coming back to The Blo2.

…

I logged in now to post what I have written … and to my surprise … I found that Rosa posted a blo2 of her own just few minutes ago… of course you don’t need me to tell you what’s in it because it’s right down here … but what’s really really nice of her is that it serves as a perfect case study for my own blo2 :D