Into the Wild: Depicting the Life of Christopher McCandless

From an adventurous to a sheer idiot, opinions varied about Christopher McCandless. In January 1993 Author Jon Krakauer published an article in Outside Magazine titled “Death of an Innocent”, in which he depicted the life of Christopher McCandless.

“The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun”

 

The above is McCandless’s logic. A 24 years old Emory University graduate, who decided to give up a relatively comfortable life and hitchhiked his way to Alaska in April 1992, resided in an abandoned bus near Mt. McKinley and wandered in the Alaskan wilderness adopting the name “Alexander Super tramp”.

Armored with his journal, basic supplies, and a field guide to the region’s edible plants McCandless survived in the wild for more than 100 days. Amidst his journey he eventually came to a conclusion that nature is never an eternal refuge and decided to get back to civilization, nevertheless he was forced back to his snow covered bus as the route was blocked by high water. Christopher McCandless partially decomposed body was found in September same year by moose hunters.

I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!-McCandless, final note.

Krakauer versus Penn:

Intrigued by McCandless’s experience, Jon Krakauer decided to take his published article a step further. He spent three years of background research and in 1996 he published his book “Into the Wild”. In the book Krakauer compares Christopher’s experience to other wilderness experiences and his own as well. Defending Christopher and presenting the circumstances that pushed the 24 years pal to cut off with his community; Krakauer relates Chris’s seclusion to his family, especially his demanding father who was a perfection freak.

About Chirs’s experience Krakauer says “He soon discovered, however, what Muir and Thoreau already knew: An extended stay in the wilderness inevitably directs one’s attention outward as much as inward, and it is impossible to live off the land without discovering both a subtle understanding of, and a strong emotional bond with, that land and all it holds”

Krakauer believes that away from a couple of fatal mistakes, McCandless would have been alive now.

In 2007 an adaptation of the biography written and directed by Sean Penn was released. In the movie Penn decided to take off Krakauer’s voice and stick to Chris’s story only. Penn’s approach was as well different from Krakauer’s “The interest I had in the story was predominantly what he was pursuing and not as much what he was fleeing“. When Penn first read the novel and approached the McCandless’s to get their approval Billie, Chirs’s mother said that she had a dream and her son is not ready yet to see a film of his life. However, after 10 years Penn received an approval call from the family and started working on the movie.

Penn’s movie is a masterpiece and totally motivating. It has been awarded The Golden Globe for the Best Original Song and nominated to the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and Best Film Editing.

Invitation: The Book Club around the Corner-Storytelling for Kids

Dear Friends,
The Book Club around the Corner invites you to a storytelling morning with Nag.  Nag will be waiting for all her friends to walk them through her fantasy world and tell them stories out of this place.

When: Friday 23 May 2008
Time: 11:00 am – 01:00 pm
Where: Shorouk Bookstore El Korba.
Age Group: 6-9

For confirmations please email nermeena285@gmail.com

Looking forward to see you :D

Nermeen
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/bcatc?hl=en

From “Women who run with the wolves”– Clarissa Pinkola Estes

“To adjoin the instinctual nature does not mean to come undone, change everything from left to right, from black to white, to move the east to west, to act crazy or out of control. It does not mean to lose one’s primary socializations, or to become less human. It means quite the opposite. The wild nature has a vast integrity to it”

“La Loba (Wolf Woman), the old one, the One Who Knows, is within us. She thrives in the deepest soul-psyche of women, the ancient and vital Wild Woman. She describes her home as that place in time where the spirit of women and the spirit of wolf meet the place where her mind and her instincts mingle, where a woman’s deep life funds her mundane life. It is the point where the I and the Thou kiss, the place where women run with the wolves”

“To win the wildish woman’s heart, a mate would understand her natural duality through and through. Anyone close to a wildish woman is in fact in the presence of two women; an outer being and an interior criatura, one who lives in the topside world, one who lives in the world not so easily seeable. The outer being lives by the light of day and is easily observed. She is often pragmatic, acculturated, and very human. The criatura, however, often travels to the surface from far away, often appearing and then as quickly disappearing, yet always leaving behind a feeling: something surprising, original, and knowing”

“Like all other lonely or hungry things, ego loves the light. It sees light, and the possibility of being close to the soul, and it creeps up to it and steals one of its essential camouflages. In a hunger for soul, our own ego-self steals the pelt”

“Forgiveness is an act of creation. You can choose from many ways to do it. You can forgive for now, forgive till then, forgive till the next time, forgive but give no more chances it’s a whole new game if there is another incident. You can give one more chance, give several more chances, give many chances, give chances only if. You can forgive part, all, or half of the offense. You can devise a blanket of forgiveness. You decide”

The Book Club Around the Corner

The BCATC brings members together to read and discuss a selection of titles that vary in genre (fiction & non-fiction).   The club highly promotes and values Freedom of expression.

 The purpose of this book club is to:

- Cultivate reading as a lifetime healthful habit.

- Expand the members’ personal literary experience by reading quality and diverse works.

- provide an open forum for members to exchange ideas and opinions by having monthly book discussions and networking with other literary organizations.

-On the long term- Sponsor a junior book club.

 Activities: Book Discussions:

Every month we will brainstorm a list of 5 books, and will go with the book that acquired the highest number of votes.  We can also invite the authors to answer members questions, and discuss their writing.

 Story telling events:

Will host professional story tellers and folk tales narrators.  Members may also present their own story telling events if they are willing to.

 On the spot Round-Robin gatherings:

A monthly event, in which the moderator will prepare an undisclosed theme until he/she starts the round.  The round participants then will collaborate to come out with a full story.

 Book Bazar:

Club members gather in a friendly event to sell or exchange their superfluous books.

 Online activities( could be but not limited to):

Online book discussions, book recommendations, book reviews, interesting book quotes, and announcements.

 How to Join: 

Visit the Club’s Home Page

http://groups.google.com/group/nerros-book-club

Rateeba w Ensaf Roshdy

Is a Gemini associated syndrome that has recently been drumming me relentlessly, not that I wasn’t a Gemini before-coz I’ve always been one- yet little Ms. ridiculously irrelevant decided to start acting up and for a reason I chose not  to have power over it.  I used to know how to control my mood swings, and innate dithering but currently am more into the spontaneous side of myself.  Seriously, I found out that there are things that I need to know about myself, fa no way I can figure them out, unless am totally myself!!  

Last night I was torn between watching tv, reading a nice book that I’ve started a few days ago, and writing an Arabic post in a series that I committed myself to write ( one of the new year’s resolutions).

Nerro would have scolded herself muttering things about amusement and prioritization,  yet Rateeba made up her mind and  ended up doing the 3 things simultaneously while  Ensaf stood in the middle of the room lolling at what Rateeba is doing and wondering if this would have been  done better a la Nerro!!

Side Note: I have segregated the Arabic posts from the English oneس, and gathered the “what me thinks is” readable material here.

Books:
Since it is the book fair hype and stuff I have a lot of reading to do, I even contemplated a reading vacation, nevertheless am a relatively new hire, and still have 3 months to be allowed some rest.  Am currently reading Shay Aswad by Rabee3 Gaber a Lebanese writer that I fall in love with his style (in this novel, as I haven’t read any other thing for him), and I highly recommend.  Here is a quote from the novel:

“يزعم أن الحياة لا قيمة لها (أولاً لأنها زائلة و ثانياً لأنها سلسلة لا متناهية من الرغبات فالتحققات فالخيبات فالرغبات، و ثالثاً لأنها غير مبررة – و هو اجتماع أولاً و ثانياً) لكنه يظل يتعلق بها و يكره أن يضجر و يود لو كان كذا أو كذا رغم أنه يعرف تفاهة هذا و سخافته، في النهاية”

Listening to the music of the night

Current Status:I am spending a beautiful Thursday winter night at home, listening to the Phantom of the Opera sound tracks, and repeating the phantom of the opera song times and times again, I’ve been listening to it since morning and I didn’t get bored. Doesn’t sound pretty much like me, no?? however, Sarah Brightman and Michael Crowford are sorta irresistable.  here goes for those who are interested…and if not just try listening to it, you are gonna love it.

from theh Glass Castle (Jeanette Walls):

When I recovered, Dad picked me up and heaved me back into the middle of the Hot Pot. “Sink or Swim!” he called out. For the Second time, I sank. The water once more filled my nose and lungs. I kicked and flailed and thrashed my way to the surface, gasping for air, and reached out to Dad. But he pulled back, and I didn’t feel his hands around me until I’d sunk one more time.

He did it again and again, until the realization that he was rescuing me only to throw me back into the water took hold, and so, rather than reaching for Dad’s hands, I tried to get away from them. I kicked at him and pushed away through the water with my arms, and finally, I was able to propel myself beyond his grasp.

“You’re doing it, baby!” Dad shouted. “You’re swimming!”

I staggered out of the water and sat on the calcified rocks, my chest heaving. Dad came out of the water, too, and tried to hug me, but I wouldn’t have anything to do with him, or with mom, who’d been floating on her back as if nothing were happening, or with Brian and Lori who gathered around and were congratulating me. Dad kept telling me that he loved me, that he never would have let me drown, but you can’t cling to the side your whole life, that one lesson every parent needs to teach a child is “If you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim.” what other reason, he asked, would possibly make him do this?

Once I got my breath back, I figured he must be right. There was no other way to explain it.

Ana Masry!! A not to be missed sorta conert:

An event/concert that I’ve attended last week at the AUC, I gotta admit it was a different kind of concert. Ehaab Abdou’s beautiful lyrics and music were extraordinary, Janine Zaki took the audience breath, and when Yasser Abou Ouf Sang Aho Da elli Sar, and Emta El Zaman yesma7 ya gamil..he owned the stage. Sheikh Zein sang a part from diwan el 7alag…and there was a violinist who really got me. Cheapeau begad for the theme Ehaab chose, I loved it…anywayz, they are performing next Monday, 3 December @ Sakia. Don’t miss it

Down Town:

mmm..am in the process of getting along with downtown, still can’t make good friends with the district, as it is super crowded keda and intimidating (you can hardly cross the street, spend around 30 mins to get out of kasr el 3eini st to tahrir square, and even if you tried to walk you have to come across a heck of a painful side walk that would hurt your feet aktar 7aga that we now call this area midan el shaheed wel raseef el mo2lem), whether driving or walking I can easily get lost.  However, I am doing my best to figure familiar places and relate..mesh 3arfa maybe it is still early!! for some hidden reason inside the little beautiful head of moi I thought I would make instantaneous peace with dowtown.

Beautiful warm night for all :D

from Letters to a young poet - “Rilke”

“Whoever looks seriously will find that neither for death which is difficult, nor for difficult love has any clarification, any solution, any hint of a path been perceived; and for both these tasks which we carry wrapped up and hand on without opening, there is no general agreed-upon rule that can be discovered. But in the same measure in which we begin to test life as individuals, these great Things will come to meet us, the individuals, with greater intimacy” Letter 7

 ”If a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety like light and cloud-shadows moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change” Letter 8

“Don’t observe yourself too closely. Don’t be too quick to draw conclusions from what happens to you; simply let it happen. Otherwise it will be too easy for you to look with blame (that is: morally) at your past, which naturally has a share in everything that now meets you” Letter 8

Back to single status

Life:

Well, we sometimes make mistakes, or take wrong decisions.  Happens, no?  Part of me feels so sad but honestly, I do not want to victimize myself; coz the truth of matter is I am lucky.  God was all around me, I asked for guidance and support and he was leading and helping me finding the missing puzzle pieces to form the scrambled picture.  On a final comment on this issue, I am a single girl who has found joy in acceptance of her status. 

 

Books:

I love, love, loved Sa7ar El Mougi’s “Noon”, the style is super interesting and unique, it is a lovely and thought provoking read.  I personally related to it BIG TIME.  The theme, narration, characters, and the chosen verses at the beginning of every chapter are extraordinarily beautiful.  The use of Pharaonic Goddesses “symbols” is a real hit, I for one never been interested in Pharaonic history but the symbols in the novel tempted me to go read and discover more about them.  

Another recommended read is Safinaz Kazem’s new release “San3et Latafa”, more about the book when I finish it, bas it is the first thing I read for the writer, and I am stimulated to pursue more of her writings.

 

Tours:

Am back on track, more places to discover and tour around soon isa.  Last weekend Nousha and I went to the The Museum of Glass, Art, Sculpture, and Egyptian Paste, this is the museum she posted about in her blog.  Let me tell you, we had a blast, the place is heavenly keda, we liked the exhibited stuff, the jewelry, statues, glass work, everything, bas mathalan I did like the poor display of some of the pieces, el background is dusty w keda, khosara ya3ni. What I enjoyed most was Nousha’s company begad, thanks for the day ya gamila…I had so much fun.

 

On a separate note:

What happened to the service and cleanliness @ the Euro Deli? Mind you, I still love their french fries, bas recently am not tempted to go eat at the place khales :S no cool…me thinks!

 

Nerro sings off humming “el donya reesha f hawa…tara ra ra ra”

Heads Up!!!

Khaled El Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns is now available at the Kotob Khan, I managed to go this morning and get my copy. And let me tell you…I kinda finished the first five chapters while drinking a cup of cappucino..it is a page turner as expected.

On another note: for those who couldn’t get their copies of Sa7ar El Mougy’s new novel “Noon”..new copies have arrived.  It is really amazing to know that hundreds of copies have been sold in the first book signing session!!! and the bookstore actually ran out of copies in that first night.  Kaman, Karam told me this morning eno it is gonna be the book of the month, which is really cool:D

N ,

Enjoying A Thousand Splendid Suns

From: “Born on a Blue Day,” by Daniel Tammet

Blue Nines and Red Words

“I was born on January 31, 1979 — a Wednesday. I know it was a Wednesday, because the date is blue in my mind and Wednesdays are always blue, like the number 9 or the sound of loud voices arguing. I like my birth date, because of the way I’m able to visualize most of the numbers in it as smooth and round shapes, similar to pebbles on a beach. That’s because they are prime numbers: 31, 19, 197, 97, 79 and 1979 are all divisible only by themselves and 1. I can recognize every prime up to 9,973 by their “pebble-like” quality. It’s just the way my brain works.

I have a rare condition known as savant syndrome, little known before its portrayal by actor Dustin Hoffman in the Oscar-winning 1988 film Rain Man. Like Hoffman’s character, Raymond Babbitt, I have an almost obsessive need for order and routine which affects virtually every aspect of my life.

For example, I eat exactly 45 grams of porridge for breakfast each morning; I weigh the bowl with an electronic scale to make sure. Then I count the number of items of clothing I’m wearing before I leave my house. I get anxious if I can’t drink my cups of tea at the same time each day. Whenever I become too stressed and I can’t breathe properly, I close my eyes and count. Thinking of numbers helps me to become calm again.

Numbers are my friends, and they are always around me. Each one is unique and has its own personality. The number 11 is friendly and 5 is loud, whereas 4 is both shy and quiet — it’s my favorite number, perhaps because it reminds me of myself. Some are big — 23, 667, 1,179 — while others are small: 6, 13, 581. Some are beautiful, like 333, and some are ugly, like 289. To me, every number is special.

No matter where I go or what I’m doing, numbers are never far from my thoughts. In an interview with talk show host David Letterman in New York, I told David he looked like the number 117 — tall and lanky. Later outside, in the appropriately numerically named Times Square, I gazed up at the towering skyscrapers and felt surrounded by 9s — the number I most associate with feelings of immensity”.

“My synesthesia also affects how I perceive words and language. The word ladder, for example, is blue and shiny, while hoop is a soft, white word. The same thing happens when I read words in other languages: jardin, the French word for “garden,” is a blurred yellow, while hnugginn — Icelandic for “sad” — is white with lots of blue specks. Synesthesia researchers have reported that colored words tend to obtain their colors from the initial letter of the word, and this is generally true for me: yogurt is a yellow word, video is purple (perhaps linked with violet) and gate is green. I can even make the color of a word change by mentally adding initial letters to turn the word into another: at is a red word, but add the letter H to get hat and it becomes a white word. If I then add a letter T to make that, the word’s color is now orange. Not all words fit the initial-letter pattern: words beginning with the letter A, for example, are always red and those beginning with W are always dark blue”.

“Dark as night, sweet as sin”

- This is sort of an energy(less) post, again…one of those severe mood swings…I don’t know, I mean, I can’t really complain about ANYTHING, life is practically perfect in every possible way..which doesn’t really give me enough chance to whine about things…which things?? I don’t exactly know!!

- Appraisal: for the second year in a row, am an outstanding employee (yaaaaaaaaay), what made it more special to me this year is that the criteria has changed. However, am the only employee who acquired a 5o in my department.

- Boss is leaving, and his replacement will arrive mid February.  Don’t know what is the real reason behind his unexpected resignation “it all came over the weekend”.  His replacement is a nice guy though.

- It hit me the other day while attending the IGWS forum, that I never had a cool professor not a single one during my journey throughout the Egyptian educational system.  

P.S: Cool here could be interpreted as either hot or interesting.  A.K.A a professor to have a crush on…What on earth has triggered the thought!! A cool professor ;).

- Please, please, pretttttttty please always remember that thank you and please work wonders.

-The Neil Gaiman over doze: am almost half way thru Anansi Boys, to be followed by Fragile things, and the pre-release order for The Facts in The Case of The Departure of Miss Finch has been successfully placed.  Currently listening to “Cinnamon” from this audio collection.

- My song for the week: I love you more, from Marcel Khalife’s album Peace Be With you, a beautiful song, originally a Darwish’s poem…I just love it.  Speaking of Marcel, the New CD “Takasim” is supposedly out everywhere except in
Egypt!!! 

Beautiful morning

It sure is, a wonderful morning in Cairo, a little breezy, but me wants more, greedy ba2a :).  I have the energy of 2 very healthy horses who are looking forward to run in the desert…endlessly.  Seriously, I slept around 8 consecutive hours last night, which is great, didn’t happen in the last 45 days….fa I feel so energized this morning, feels like me awi, at a point keda, I thought I lost the energetic vivid me, bas apparently I was too drained and exhausted.  Anywayz, glad am back :D

Cookies, cookies, cookies “as in ka7k”, cookies talk everywhere, it is the focus of attention these days…madame khashab, la2 Sedra, forget it Les Dames w khalas, can’t say i don’t like the talk, as it is a bit mouth watering”am starving and it is still 10″, bas it is too much, kaman the funny thing ba2a, eno inorder to buy the cookies aslan you have to spend hours and hours in queues to get what u want, mmmm we can exclude Mme Khashab from the queues thing, bas still it is too “much ado about a little thing” can’t say nothing though ;).

The night we attended the concert, the guys were playing  a piece keda that touched me awi in a very strange way, I opened my purse to check the tilte of the piece on the CD, and it hit me when I read it “Zafet el Shahid”…it is so beautiful. Just a little thought while  listening to it.

“The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Kundera is my Eid book, the title tab3an caught me, not only that but while googling it, I found the following lines in the Wikipedia:

“According to Kundera, “being” is full of “unbearable lightness” because each of us has only one life to live: “Einmal ist Keinmal” (”once is never”, i.e., “what happened once might as well have never happened at all”). Therefore, each life is ultimately insignificant; every decision ultimately does not matter. Since decisions do not matter, they are “light”: they do not tie us down. But at the same time, the insignificance of our decisions - our lives, or being - is unbearable. Hence, “the unbearable lightness of being.”

Interesting…ha??  more on when I get done with it.

I go ba2a,

N “chasing the sun with ribbons undone”

3 hours after midnight

She’s a girl
Rising from a shell
Running to spring
It is her time it is her time
Watch her run with ribbons undone

She’s a rose in a lily’s cloak
She can hide her charms
It is her right there will be time
To chase the sun with ribbons undone

She runs like a fire does
Just picking up daises
Comes in for a landing
A pure flash of lightening
Past alice blue blossoms
You follow her laughter
And then she’ll surprise you
Arms filled with lavender

“Tori Amos’s Ribbons Undone”:

Life: 

Oh my…..am extremely exhausted, both physically and mentally.  I barely sleep. Am involved in an important project keda…fa am literally losing my mind.  The good news is..am off next Sunday, which means eno I only have 4 working days before the 3eed vacation…I have a whole week off….don’t have any plans yet…but one thing I know for sure…my phone will be off and am gonna relaaaaaaaaaaaaaax. 

Books: 

Re-read Bahaa Taher’s “Noqtet el Nour”…God, I refer to this novel whenever I feel a bit down keda or not in the mood….it says a lot.

Now almost half way thru 7anan El Sheikh’s “7ekayti Shar7 Ytool”….Berry recommended it, and here I am recommending it….it is such a beautiful read…too warm, sincere, and full of details. 

Excerpt from Eva is Inside Her Cat “Gabriel Garcia Marquez”

Below is an excerpt from one of Marquez’s short stories..I loved it fa thought of sharing.

 

“But one supreme idea reanimated her. Hadn’t she heard, perhaps, that pure spirits can penetrate any body at will? After all, what harm was there in trying? She attempted to remember what inhabitant of the house could be put to the proof. If she could fulfill her aim she would be satisfied: she could eat the orange. She remembered. At that time the servants were usually not there. Her mother still hadn’t arrived. But the need to eat an orange, joined now to the curiosity of seeing herself incarnate in a body different from her own, obliged her to act at once. And yet there was no one there in whom she could incarnate herself. It was a desolating bit of reason: there was nobody in the house. She would have to live eternally isolated from the outside world, in her undimensional world, unable to eat the first orange. And all because of a foolish thing. It would have been better to go on bearing up for a few more years under that hostile beauty and not wipe herself out forever, making herself useless, like a conquered beast. But it was too late.She was going to withdraw, disappointed, into a distant region of the universe, to a place where she could forget all her earthly desires. But something made her suddenly hold back. The promise of a better future had opened up in her unknown region. Yes, there was someone in the house in whom she could reincarnate herself: the cat! Then she hesitated. It was difficult to resign herself to live inside an animal. She would have soft, white fur, and a great energy for a leap would probably be concentrated in her muscles. And she would feel her eyes glow in the dark like two green coals. And she would have white, sharp teeth to smile at her mother from her feline heart with a broad and good animal smile. But no! It couldn’t be. She imagined herself quickly inside the body of the cat, running through the corridors of the house once more, managing four uncomfortable legs, and that tail would move on its own, without rhythm, alien to her will. What would life look like through those green and luminous eyes? At night she would go to mew at the sky so that it would not pour its moonlit cement down on the face of the “boy,” who would be on his back drinking in the dew. Maybe in her status as a cat she would also feel fear. And maybe in the end, she would be unable to eat the orange with that carnivorous mouth. A coldness that came from right then and there, born of the very roots of her spirit quivered in her memory. No. It was impossible to incarnate herself in the cat. She was afraid of one day feeling in her palate in her throat in all her quadruped organism, the irrevocable desire to eat a mouse. Probably when her spirit began to inhabit the cat s body she would no longer feel any desire to eat an orange but the repugnant and urgent desire to eat a mouse. She shuddered on thinking about it, caught between her teeth after the chase. She felt it struggling in its last attempts at escape, trying to free itself to get back to its hole again. No. Anything but that. It was preferable to stay there for eternity in that distant and mysterious world of pure spirits.

But it was difficult to resign herself to live forgotten forever. Why did she have to feel the desire to eat a mouse? Who would rule in that synthesis of woman and cat? Would the primitive animal instinct of the body rule, or the pure will of the woman? The answer was crystal clear. There was no reason to be afraid. She would incarnate herself in the cat and would eat her desired orange. Besides, she would be a strange being, a cat with the intelligence of a beautiful woman. She would be the center of all attention. . . . It was then, for the first time, that she understood that above all her virtues what was in command was the vanity of a metaphysical woman.

Like an insect on the alert which raises its antennae, she put her energy to work throughout the house in search of the cat. It must still be on top of the stove at that time, dreaming that it would wake up with a sprig of heliotrope between its teeth. But it wasn’t there. She looked for it again, but she could no longer find the stove. The kitchen wasn’t the same. The corners of the house were strange to her; they were no longer those dark corners full of cobwebs. The cat was nowhere to be found. She looked on the roof, in the trees, in the drains, under the bed, in the pantry. She found everything confused. Where she expected to find the portraits of her ancestors again, she found only a bottle of arsenic. From there on she found arsenic all through the house, but the cat had disappeared. The house was no longer the same as before. What had happened to her things? Why were her thirteen favorite books now covered with a thick coat of arsenic? She remembered the orange tree in the courtyard. She looked for it, and tried to find the “boy” again in his pit of water. But the orange tree wasn’t in its place and the “boy” was nothing now but a handful of arsenic mixed with ashes underneath a heavy concrete platform. Now she really was going to sleep. Everything was different. And the house had a strong smell of arsenic that beat on her nostrils as if from the depths of a pharmacy.

Only then did she understand that three thousand years had passed since the day she had had a desire to eat the first orange”.

Starving

Discovered that I missed documenting lots of things here the past few days…let me see if I can catch up with everything. I won’t I know…but will do my best.

First…due thanks…..everyone who dropped a line and offered help re. the firewall issue…I really appreciate it..I asked the guys here to open a few sites for me..and they promised to work it out…if not…Mo will take good care of me. 

Khaled “beta3 kollo”: one of the very few positive things I experienced lately…Khaled is the owner of a meduim size store @ one of the North Coast Villages…you can always call him for Water, fol and ta3meya, Kabab&kofta, pizzas and pastries…and above all “lo2met el 2adi bel sokar”…I have never had such tasty ones..they were awesome.  Not only he provides everything one might need…but being the only one serving several units…you would expect him to be such a greedy freak…who would typically rip you off and give you @#$#$#..but no…his prices were reasonable…and the quality of service and goods were exceptional. 

Outing: Wonderer, Juka, Nesrina, and myself…met last Sunday for lunch and movies…..Nesrina and Wonderer decided to eat the so called “guiltless” kind of stuff…”for whatever reason they had in mind”…thought Juka would order real food..but she ended up eating caeser salad!! that was odd…in comparsion to my platter.

Then we started thinking movies….ehm…ehm..I will spare myself going thru the embarrassing details of getting the tickets “ya wonderora ;D”…the movie “wa7ed men el nas” was cool and different yet too much blood…that was my only concern.

Work: Before my vacation had a long talk with boss…and to conclude ya3ni..he asked me to sit and revise my job description to reflect the current duties…then he will start working on the promotion….he mentioned something that I won’t be able to mention here…that stopped me from updating the JD…zat iz no cool :(((

Books: I am that type of person who would live in the atmosphere of whatever she reads…fa yesterday I realized that what am suffering from now might be the effect of “the good earth” on me…the novel is good but leaves you with a strange feeling of depression…the same effect of Steinbeck’s “of mice and men”. 

Productivity: BIG FAT ZERO….and I will blame it on summer…I don’t like summer…Winter ba2a….tab 3 months summer…w 3 months winter…”Autumn and spring are no longer valid options”.

Happy thought: tomorrow is THURSDAY :D

LOL..I caught myself moving my finger around the edge of the keyboard to click on something “as if in a laptop”.