Thursday, April 28, 2011

Maybe.

I have had it with clouds and to-do lists. I have had it with the negativity that surrounds me, of being left behind. Of feeling like I have to go the extra mile, or make the call first, or drive to wherever everyone is, why is it that I have to call and not be the one who gets called? Why is it that I have to be the one to go to places?


I am not being snobbish or anything, I just want to stay still.

I want to stay here. To sit still and not move and have everything around me move; and I watch. I observe. And see all the details, the look that lasted one second too long. The touch that lingers for that extra split second. The moment your coffee goes cold, the fraction of a centimeter my brother grows everyday. The one extra grey hair I get, or my sister, or my mother, or my father.

I want to watch it all happen, and take note of it all, and write it all down.

12:01 pm: I make coffee.
(I leave it on the table for too long while I do things that might or might not matter)
12:15:39 pm: my coffee is on the cold side of warm.
(There's a breeze, a beautiful breeze that is on the chilly side of warm, the sun is a bit muted outside. And the highway to the beach is crowded; long weekend)

I want to live and experience the exact moment when the sea starts crawling backwards, and the moment it decides to come closer. I want to know what my skin thinks when it first touches the Red Sea after a long winter. It was a long winter. One during which I have yearned for the sea so many times, but never went. I finally went to say hi, even though it wasn't warm enough, I went in. Oh how I'd missed it.

I would do anything if only I knew I mattered. But do I?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Maybe I only matter to myself.
And maybe that's all that matters, all that will ever matter.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Yes, the royal wedding.

I am probably the only one I personally know that is excited about the royal wedding. But, I have to be honest; I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THE ROYAL WEDDING.

I am obsessing. I really am.
I want to know who designed the dress, and how the dress would look like, I want to know what shoes she'll wear and how her hair is going to be done. And so on.

I have been reading all about royal wedding etiquette and have been looking at tiaras and family trees.. Did you know that Kate Middleton is the first royal bride in over 350 years to not belong to a royal/aristocratic family?

I feel bad for her though, she has to measure up to Lady Diana's sense of fashion when- from what I have seen- she's not one to take risks or make fashion statements. Everything about her is....simple.


Do you think Prince William would want to be Duke? Will Miss Kate be Duchess or Princess Kate?

Is anyone planning anything special for the wedding? Fascinators? tea? pretty dresses?

Monday, April 18, 2011

(Let me tell you about my)* boyfriend

I think the first thing I remember my now boyfriend say - or talk about, was a story of Kasr El-Ainy hospital where he is an intern.
(First thing I remember telling him was ask how old he was, or what his surname was.) Yes, I do ask pretty awkward questions that might initially seem out of context, but my brain works in different way and there us always a reason behind why I asked what his surname was when he was saying how he was going to New York the following month for comicon.

(I did just write comicon)

He went, and we were boyfriend-girlfriend by the time he went.

So anyway, my boyfriend now blogs about the stories! One night he called, and told me about this girl and how she was following him and the first thing I asked was "Can everyone else see her?" I honestly thought she was a ghost

I just thought I would share.
Well, you know...because I love him and stuff. Even though he plays games and watches shows and reads "graphic novels", I love him for giving up some of his geek-time (or a lot, rather) and spending it with me instead.

On a non-boyfriend note, I am sick and it's really hot outside, the weather sucks, I kind of hate Egyptian Springs. Or maybe just Cairene springs. On a non-boyfriend note as well, I am almost done with yet another semester. (and I hurt my knee)
And now I am off to check my reader (finally) and nurture my Pinterest obsession..

*I miss Hermia!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Planning

I have no idea what to write but I feel the need to update my blog, so expect the most random of all things to read!


I realized, lately, that spontaneity is not always a good thing, because at one point in time, I felt lost. I am the kind of person who never has a plan, only broad lines I operate within, themes, maybe but never a specific, detailed plan, because things never go as planned.
But then something happened, and I was asked what my plan was, and I didn't know, and it was such a weird experience, to not know where you want to be or what you want to do.

I mean, I know I want to do my PhD after I am done with my master's, but that is only one dimension of my life. I don't know where I want to work, or what I want to be doing, after I leave here that is, which is going to be the first thing I do after I am done with my master's.

I want to write research papers but I don't know what I want to research.
I want to write a book. I want to cook again.

And by a camera and teach myself how to take pictures.

I want to spend time with Menna.
I want to travel and laugh and discover music. I want to spend all the time I can with my boyfriend.

And my family, who definitely don't come last on my list but, sometimes, it seems like they do. But that's not true.

So many things and I obviously don't have the time do everything I want, let alone the resources - the most important of which is the plan. I need to start planning, I need to go back to writing lists. But then, they would be lists of general themes, and I would only be very specific about certain things.

Because I need to feel human at the end of the day, and not mechanically shift from one goal to the other, or from one failed plan to another in hopes it would work out.

That wasn't so random, was it?

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Debate about Egypt being an Islamic State

Today at work, a colleague asked if I wanted Egypt to be a secular state, I initially said yes, for the sake of shocking her...for she is a very sheltered, strict Muslim - which I have nothing against.

What I want is a civil state in Egypt, one where your religion is not stated on your national ID, since it's of no use, we need blood types and not religions in case of emergencies.

She said she was too scared Egypt would turn into another Sudan.
I argued that what happened in Sudan, the civil war and the division of Sudan into two states was solely due to Omar El-Bashir, now president of Northern Sudan insisting on Sudan being an Islamic state while in fact there is a huge portion of the population belonging to other religions and cultures, he forced the people to use the Arabic language and he mainly acted like it was an Arab colony on African land.
What happened in Sudan happened because of Sharia law being enforced on people. Limiting their freedom of choice and expression, which in turn lead to exclusion of people who were still essentially Sudanese.

She said Hijab (the veil) should be enforced by law.
I said do you mean that - me being a Muslim- my not being veiled I am less of a Muslim than you are? She said no...so I asked what her point was. She said that Egypt's Muslim conquest, lead by Amr ibn el Ass, transformed Egypt, automatically, into an Islamic state and it remained an Islamic state and that's how things should be. Because if "they" live in my country, they should follow my rules. I simply said, this is not your country, this is the Egyptians' country. We are a multi-cultural country and you should not enforce your culture on other people.
When Amr Ibn el Ass came to Egypt he never forced women to do anything, he never enforced his own culture on the Egyptians who were free to practice their religion and just live their lives normally. They were, however, taxed and now we are all taxed so that is not a point to be made. I told her that had the Islamic conquest happened today, no one would ever dare force me to cover my hair.

She said that "Cabarets" - by which she probably meant night clubs in general and alcohol should be prohibited.
I said then how are you supposed to control consumption and serving of alcohol? Such permits are merely means of regulation, and it is your choice to not go to "such places", however, some people choose to and they have every right to have the choice. And her argument was that my religion doesn't allow it, I told her some people aren't religious and some people's religions and cultures allow for it. I gave the example of the Netherlands and them allowing the consumption of hash and weed to control consumption, and how they are illegally dealt with and smuggled here in Egypt and if you do the same with alcohol you will have an even bigger problem.

She said that Egypt should be an Islamic state.
I said how do you trust someone else to decide for you means of practicing your religion and your just basic habitual things. How do you trust someone to represent such a personal thing as religion and rule you and your country accordingly. I said that under the Ottoman empire which was more or less and Islamic empire, prostitution was licenced and accordingly allowed. (correct me if I am wrong) and that as a Kingdom - starting 1922 - prostitution was still allowed and that was a means of regulation, merely. I asked her to explain how that fits within an Islamic context, and how that just highlights, even more, the need for separation of the state and religion. Mixing them would only mean limiting liberties and freedoms as well as tainting religion.
I said that enforcing a certain ideology would only lead to corruption, frustration and just plain chaos. She decided to use Saudi Arabia as an example and this is when I almost exploded saying that in KSA the veil is part of their culture and they don't do it for religious purposed, and that the whole underground culture can prove that, I said that the mixing of the state and religion has only lead to the jading of Islam to many Saudi Arabians.

And that was basically it. My point is that even for the people who believe that religion should be incorporated withing the state, this has never happened in Islam, and when it did, things went bad (Ask someone who was raised in Saudi and knows more about later caliphs)

A civil state is how things should be, it is how all rights are preserved and all freedoms are practiced. Or so I think.

Monday, April 4, 2011

I am...corrupt

Well, I work for the government. And I work at one of the better government authorities, or so I like to think...

Anyway, working for the government what matters the most is that you come sometime from 8 to 8:30 am and leave not before 4 and this is how you are evaluated, and how you are monitored. Let's not forget to mention that if you come in at 8:35, it is as if you did at 9, so automatically, I think "uh, I'll never make it before 8:30, I will just lounge about for a while", and 9 turns to 10 at times.


So what I do is basically forge excuses (because we have to write paper excuses)
Does that make me corrupt? how corrupt will I be if everyone else does it? I mean, it's not just me, it literally everyone.

I am mostly late due to the lack of productivity at work, which is why I hate my job, pretty much.
I feel guilty, but doing it the right way didn't work either, and I do wake up early enough, it's just....meh, you know?

My goal for this week: wake up at 7 and leave the house at 7:30- 7:45 max.

Speaking of blogging your workplace, check this out, I am pretty optimistic about it, because the stories, oh the stories...

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Easy April!!

April started out pretty intensely.
On the first day of April, we experienced a minor earthquake, affected by the one that took place in Crete, Greece.
On the second day of April, there was a football match at the Cairo stadium and the fans were not searched on their way in and apparently, there was no policing whatsoever, so long story short, violence took place and spectators somehow found their way to the field.
On the third day of April, or rather, today, it rained! Real rain, which doesn't normally/regularly happen in Cairo (as opposed to Alexandria, for example)

And hence my tweet that it feels like the twelve days of Christmas.

The sun is out now and I am about to head to my sociology class, my day was weird.
And suddenly, I remember driving around with my mother's sunglasses on - very dark ones, unlike the brown ones I am used to...(I lost my sunglasses) - and seeing fresh flowers on their trees as they glowed. And only then did it feel like Spring.