Reference: The Guardian

I wasnt taken by what I saw as maybe an inside picture about the dwelling wretched was already formulated inside my mind. But refreshing my memory of the misery all the country here has been built upon to reach this unbelievable lavish lifestyle and the dream-like projects executed and planned. I liked to post the below just as an awakening conscience that I am working on. We may fall in neglegence sometimes amid the rushing and fast momented life experienced in Dubai, but I always come into moments when I think about them. About those who created this principality from zero. I know it's not me who is supposed to thank them, but as a respect to them, regardless of their innesponsible behaviour sometimes, I say "Thank You".

THE GUARDIAN: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/gallery/2008/oct/08/1?picture=338366526

I was sitting, concentrating on the powerpoint work I have, finalizing and making it ready for submission, when a sudden flow of un-interrupted nostalgia stroke me. I felt the need to be among my parents in my village house, enjoying a calm night, nibbling traditional nuts and raisins with a hot cup of tea in a time the wind is chili and hovering around the window corners trying to sneak in.

I want to talk to mom, give her a hug, see her smile, hear her voice, ask her about tomorrow's plans; tomorrow's lunch; tomorrow's visits. I want to hold her hands and smell the remaining odours of the veggies she diced and sliced. I do remember this smell. I always used to hold her hands and stir in them; I always saw in them my history and my old days. How much I appreciate the times she changed my diapers, she combed my hair, she washed my clothes, she rolled my sandwich; I dont know how to express this kind of deep deep admiration, appreciation, and love. Its not true that the desert deprives us from our emotions; It is just the time when we start coming closer to ourselves that we start becoming more personal and intrinsic.

I am always in this remembrance state. I always miss everything I had back there. I try to revive that feeling of stability and harmony, at least live it internally to soothe my spirit and diminish the turbulances.

Keep me now there, sitting calm and warm, beside her... in my mind.

Month in a NUT

Not weird but ordinary, the days are rolling and the clocks are never stopping ticking, our cells multiplying, we are growing, everything is changing and nothing & no-one dares to pause.
I read and heard some who are celebrating the summer end and autumn kick. I wish I can feel and celebrate the same but in this land of eternal dust nothing can be felt except sun bathes and curry smell. I will sound lame if I explain more.

The month of September which I always hated, wasnt hated this year. Simply cause I didnt feel the glooms of its approach. It went as if it didnt. I confess that without the help of the tiny bottom-right area of my screen that gives me the calendar, I would never know when the hell I am. Is it a start of detach from my natural rituals and habits or a change from within?

What I miss in this country is a place where I can sit and contemplate. A place where I can see the clear skies, count the stars, hear the whispers of nature and smell the ground flames. This place where we can run-away from time to time from the huge cement cage and the endless sculptures spread all over the city. A place where we can think and heal away from the organized chaos and high-tech life we are immersed in. The absence of such a place is the result of the hyper tempers everybody is having, me being one.

Now I am packed and ready to undergo a maybe-change. As usual I dont expect much of anything since my negativity always colors the scene and makes it happens (negatively). I am simply not expecting, I am keeping everything flow with Buddah's river of life. If anything happens, the coming post will state it.

For the time being, I will capitalize on the sprees coming out of my new outfit, continue buttering and equivocating the immensive stabber, deceiver, & quacker I have ever ever seen, who is totally mounted 2 feets on my west.

END

The S-Therapy

The last two days where somehow on the unpredictable side. I wasnt thinking of anything in particular but things happened on their own trying to shuffle my puzzle of relations but my concerns were evaluated in progress and thus I avoided any downturns.

Today the weather is too hazy and sandy, the amount of sunlight is just perfect for my soul to relax (although I prefer wintery dimlight). The inner relaxations are complemeted with my physical and mental satisfaction after yesterday's tiny S-therapy as well as its a Thursday, no need to mention that tomorrow is my weekend.

Dispite my horrible dream, which rarely happens to me, and regardless of the misunderstanding that existed between me and my friends, I am glad everything is back on track and I am ready to launch myself happily to the weekend.

END

Bound Round

I dont know what raised again my interest in blogging. Among the reasons that were pinching me is my quick look I had late last night on Samer's blah. I remembered many things through going by the blogs one by one. It may be the dates or the content or both, but I felt the nostalgia and I realized and blogging on a frequent manner will be fruitful on a long term scale. So Here I am again, on the stage, applause please :)

This morning was nice, dispite the tremendous traffic jam I witnessed on my way to work. The reason was the installation of the new toll gates on Sheikh Zayed Road and Maktoum bridge. The former one is close to my work so cars were trying to avoid it and thus jamming on the nearest exits and blocking my way to work. To go back to the nice things, I felt happy today for two reasons, one is job-related and the other is personal. The job-related was due to a little achievement I received acknowledgement for. The other personal is something I wont mention here, I will keep it, maybe the future will disclose it.

Usually Tuesdays for me are like a lost, undifined, and pending days. I dont neither hate nor love. But since they are at the mid-way to the weekend, thus I start planning what will be done during my days off. Mentioning that, well I am not decided yet, I am thinking of going out for a movie and later maybe passing by a Ramadani tent to taste the amazing SAHLAB pudding. Ouch, I am just salivating for a cup right now topped with cinnamon and arabic KAAK.

No gym today, I forgot my gym-pack at home as usual. Yesterday the gym was tiring and I left it exhausted with clear sign of possible fainting. Maybe thats because my diet portions are low these days and I lost some kilos. I am working on gaining some muscles and fats again to create a balance.

Well thats it for now, I am in the office so I am supposed to be working, but the system is down so its not wrong to benefit for a while and sneak into blogger.

CIAO

On a blink

What I was thinking of right now, while checking this blog tonight after being checked for the last time since a couple of weeks is that those getting roasted under the Spanish sun should come back, coz I am getting bored.

END

COLD PLACE

I am here for one of the last couple of times I may be. The place that was warm, lively, and colorful is fading day after day. The day when its door will close is approaching and a phase of my life will close as well.

Everything has its meaning in this place and every item i scanned in the past now looks loaded with memories. What I want is impossible to be achieved. I want this place to stay lit all the comming days as well on weekends. I want the smell of the coffee foam to fill its atmosphere all the time and the tea time never be scheduled out.

I dont know what to say. All that makes me feel a strange thing. I just dont know what to say as I am dried out of words and my writing wit is just frozen.

Till the time re-opens the channels of my mind again, I will try to phrase everything down in the correct sense.

END.

DOWN

I am feeling down these days for one main reason... the mess. A year has passed while I joined the company where I am working. And throughout this year I discovered all the hidden details about everything related to my career. It's and interesting job but at the end, there is a level of professionalism that I seek and I didnt find yet especially and most importantly we are dealing here with Arab nationalities controlling the marketing processes in the main office in JEDDAH and you know how will the marketing outcome will be from such an equippe...

I am reconsidering a lot of ideas among which are resigning. Nothing is confirmed to the moment, I will think and think until the idea blinks.

END

Me is Back

Sorry my blog for the long desertness. The blame goes to Facebook. I will try my best to visit you often and often so that I keep you refreshed about me.

Samir Kassir

How incredible was that guy. I admit that my knowledge about Samir Kassir was naive. I didn’t use to read his articles in the 90s. Few ones I read in the 21st century. Maybe you can not tell how deep the thinking of Samir Kassir is until you read his articles in sequence. Through that, you can draw a map of the incidents according to their appearance in Lebanon's new history. It is not a coincidence for an educated man like Samir Kassir, who has a diploma in Philosophy from Sorbonne University to analyze what was going on in the way he did. For that reason he was chased many times by the Lebanese-Syrian intelligent forces. He struck on the most sensitive subject that was considered a scarecrow in that time. He didn’t fear anything although everything was scary. His belief in freedom and democracy surpassed the fear other journalists went through. Many considered him crazy according to the sensitivity of the subjects he wrote about.His main concern was the 'Dictatoration" of the Lebanese democracy. He uncovered all the attempts to smoothen the monster's teeth. He knew that deception was the name of the game; the intense monitoring of the Lebanese media, especially the opposition's media, and the staging of hollow debates between politicians, in addition to the lubrication of the presidential behaviors which appeared to him during the first months of Lahhoud's presidency, that the whole story was nothing more than a written statement of promises which lack the implementation procedures; It was impossible to achieve it in an era where the Syrian power was strangling the Lebanese political life and molding it into a puppet stage where the whole became submissive to the stringed fingers who move these puppets and implement their wills.

Selectivity in corruption scandals was a big part in the impunity program that was set. Those who were starting to diverse from the Syrian rules were under fire. Fears of the other corrupted politicians to face the same consequences lead them to shut their mouths and reply to the above orders. Since all politicians have their own corruption programs, all were tied up to be submissive.

Many things did Samir Kassir uncover during his life. His belief in the possible Arab-democracy that can find its way starting from Beirut was solidified. He knew that the West-wing current can comply with the global liberation of markets and economy and the open border schema against the rising Islamic radicalists who were threatening, as they gain power, to explode the suppressed societies and put the dictatorships and whole systems on stake. Not only that, but this may provide a solid ground for such fundamentalism to spread through the middle eastern nations whose people are suppressed and just looking for a way to turn the table upside down.

Wonderful and thoughtful was this man; and that was the main reason that caused his assassination on June 2, 2005. His vision of a great peaceful change that can turn the dictators into retirement and that may dilute the rising Islamic movements' powers, along with an American or western change in beliefs that the Islamic Arab nations can undergo a democratic change without the use of power, was just a road map to achieve a complete change with no casualties. He was killed and his young spirit of dreams and change was shut into silence surely in an effort to shut the remaining brave journalists who saw in Samir Kassir a repertoire which can be followed to contain the powerful Syrian-Lebanese intelligence system, which took control of all the political, economical, and juridical Lebanese life.

______________________________________________________________

*references: Samir Kassir's book: عسكر على مين 2004

TIME

It's the sixth anniversary for September 11 attacks. I will not talk about the event; I will talk about time.

Everything is running fast. We are waking up, going to work, coming back, sleep, then wake up again. But the counter is non-stopping. Hours, days, weeks, months, and years are rushing and we are somehow incapable of catching up. Everything is being incremented. The date, the time, the age, the population. It's an irreversible momentum. How will we be able to catch up with that? As for me I don't want. If I can live the moment to the maximum I won't hesitate. Every moment we are leaving back will not be replaced in any circumstance. Even when you see your family after a period of departure they are not definitely the same; They aged, their features changed, their wrinckles are deepend, their bodies are bent, and their thoughts as well shifted. I prefer to have the morning coffee with mom NOW, not even a moment after. How I feel afraid of certain thoughts that sometimes pass my mind. And when they do, I feel nothing but the need to go back home and invest every moment with my parents. I want to stay there among those who I love and who love me for nothing in return. I want to see them age, I want to follow the process. I want them to feel me between them too. At the end, we work and travel and work and travel for what? To secure our future? But what’s the benefits of having a good financial future when those you love are gone?? I don't want to sound pessimistic and mystical. It's just the same thread that invaded my thoughts and makes me stop at it and think; Is all that worth it? Will all the money we gather will be capable of returning our good times? Will we be more confident about our futures when we make-fat our bank accounts? For me it's not. I am never sad for a penny I spend; I am never sad for an object I lost; But I am sad for the time I have been living abroad away from the people I love, from the people who care for me, from the people who stood by me during my early age and who are ready to give yet anything for my safety and happiness.

Stereotyping Prostitutes !

With her black smoky eyes, with her devil-red lip sticks, with her exaggerated makeup, with her stretched summarized dress, with her exhumed hair, she enters to master the hall. She moves to take her seat, waiting for a customer to pass by and invite her for the nightly drink. If she accepts, then her night journey begins; if not, then another customer may be of better taste and wealth to have a slightly higher tip for her services. That’s how she lives, eroding herself from all human emotions to become a great actor. She can be the prostitute of pleasure, she can me the caring mother for those running away from their daily life pressures, and she can be a companion in a chilly night in Geneva. After all that, she comes to her dorm, removes all of her accessories, unmask her makeup, looks to the mirror and see her true self, a girl who was dreaming in her calm village in Brazil of finding her true love, got married to a handsome man, raising their children in her sea side house and living her life in secure. But the excitement to know what lies beyond the hills of her town drove her into a world she thought in the beginning that it will provide her with wealth, fame, and power. She ended to become a Brazilian prostitute in the cold city of Geneva; and this is the start.

Every time she discovered a new thing. She met different kinds of men; Men with different social and business standards who appear to differ in their demands. The most important thing she kept in her mind is not to fall in love with any. She knew that she was here to work and gain some money that will enable her to go back to her town and open a farm and marry the love of her life. But the love feeling was unavoidable. At the end she is a human, she has the right to feel, but she has to make sure that the other side does not perceive her as a prostitute at all. There were the problem of the look she received or any misinterpretations that happen in any held dialogue. She always wanted to come out of the environment she was living in, but the need for money always kept her break up any attempts. Even when she had all the money to go back home, something kept her nailed to that piece of land. It was the warmth she started to feel with the painter who discovered the light in her. She felt weird for how can a beautiful prostitute, who met a lot of men, still hold a light within. That was the reason that unleashed her emotions again through believing that she was looked at as a woman, not as the profession she masters.

So, for any reasons, we don’t have the right to stereotype. We don’t know the main reasons and circumstances that pushed such girls to become prostitutes. If we don’t want to generalize at least we don’t want to specify. Life creates barriers and handicaps for people and obliges them sometimes to use roads they never intended to use. A prostitute may be more honorable from inside than a house raised lady. She may hold decent manners another lady lack. Again, sometimes the current of life sweeps the human being in accordance to circumstances he/she is experiencing away from his/her real dreams and intentions.