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

Published in: on November 29, 2007 at 11:35 pm Comments Off

Although it is night, but That’s the kind of day I wish for you ;D

A dear friend of mine sent me this song and he literally made my day, fa I thought I should pay it forward :D

A setting sun that paints a tie-dyed sky
A feather bed, an ancient lullaby
A kiss good night from one whose love is true
That’s the kind of day i wish for you
A field of flowers dancing in the spring
A little creek, a tree, an old rope swing
Cotton candy clouds against the blue
That’s the kind of day i wish for you

First love with all its storm
Raging like fire within
Tossing your heart to chance
You swear the dance will never end

But then it does and someone says goodbye
And after all those empty nights you cried
The morning that you wake up good as new
That’s the kind of day i wish for you

The faith of knowing deep inside your heart
That heaven holds more than just some stars
Someone’s up there watching over you
That’s the kind of day i wish for you

Published in: on November 13, 2007 at 9:25 pm Comments (2)

Don’t Miss: Ehaab’s new concert (Ana El Masry)

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You can get to hear some of Ehaab’s songs here

Published in: on November 8, 2007 at 9:25 pm Comments (0)

Autumn Chill

And I wonder if we are gonna ever have a feel of this…seriously..it is Novermber already and the weather is utterly hot.  Am exaggerating a little bit..but it is hot.It is Friday night and am in the mood for blabbing.  There is a good Woody Allen movie on t.v. but for some reason I can’t get myslef to watch it khales.  I am spending a quiet weekend at home, nothing much is going on in the pinky life of my-royal-self  as am getting all ready and energized for my new job. Should report there Sunday morning isa.

As mentioned in the previous post,  yesterday was my last day at work “siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh”.   Aslan I asked my colleagues not to throw a farewell party for me, I hate them…call me anti-social I don’t really mind at all,  but those parties are for elder people…feels like 7afl ta2been keda…plus eno am the kind of person who prefers small cozy intimate gatherings, fa no point of throwing a big party that I won’t be really enjoying.   And that’s what really happened I had lunch with boss and close ones in Fridays, then we had another gathering at the company with a cake and loads of jokes and fun in the very first department I worked for in the company.   I loved the day, I loved my gifts and cute funny cards,  I loved the sincere wishes,  I loved scanning the walls and every single corner while walking around the building for the last time…but above all I am secretly thrilled to be called irreplaceable ;D

 Corporate guy: blog worthy story: So we were anticipating a corporate visit a couple of weeks ago…me knowing who is coming I was up and at the top of it. I’ve seen one of the visitors in an earlier visit this year, but I was in the middle of something a.k.a relation fa I didn’t really pay good attention. Yet, I had a hint on how amusing this visit could be. Anywayz, the visitors came, and I was in front of the most handsome guy I’ve ever seen in my life…mind yoyu, he is  not only handsome, he is also that classy, elegant, cultured, polite, witty, etc. etc.  kinda guy that I can write books on him.  Anywayz, I decided to be professional and forget all about how irresistable this guy is and concentrate in whatever I have to do. There were eye contacts and glances that I thought were of a special nature, yet I convinced myself that it is only a figment of my overly active imagination.  The next day I took both visitors in a tour around our facilities, and I acted as foolishly as I never been in my life..anywayz, I kept on reminding my self that whatever I have in my mind is a “figment of my overly active imagination” bardo. I was putting my sun-glasses on most of the time to avoid eye contacts. But at some point the other visitor was using the rest room and I had to run a face to face conversation I was like why can’t I pretend that am an alien now and abduct you!!Anywayz…the next day was the goodbye day…and that was a heck of goodbye..the hanshake was weird and intense…it was long and tight with a straight right into the heart look…I blushed and grabbed my hand quickly from his…it was pretty embarrasing as my boss and the other visitor were around and watching.  So …I think I  probably sent him all the wrong signals.  What’s the moral of the story…nothing in particular but the emphasis on me being a drama queen!!  Needless to saythat I’ve spent 3 days looking him up on the internet, fantasying that I might find a blog of him or something and I can act as if I landed there incidentlly….alas, there is no such thing like him on the World Wide Web…he is not even registered in the FB :S 

Note to him: oh MS how do I miss thee.

For Heliopolitan Book Worms: Starting December (as for as I know, which is not necessirly info from a reliable source) I guess we won’t need to drive all the way to the other side of the city to stimulate our soft spot for books.   Diwan and Dar El Shorouk are opening their book stores in Heliopolis. Yaaaaaaaaaaay…Sweet..no!!

Published in: on November 3, 2007 at 12:49 am Comments (8)

My last day at work

Oh God, this is getting too emotional. It is even more emotional than any break-up I’ve ever had in my life!! :(”’

Published in: on November 1, 2007 at 1:00 pm Comments Off

Turn the page

“Life doesn’t happen in chapters— at least, not regular ones”.   It is not indeed…life is a whole, we fill in the pages of a small/meduim/large notebook that we have to skim through every now and then to make sure where are we standing.

I am turning one heck of a page in my life;  a page full of facts,  statements,  nonsense,  figures of speech,  scribbled paragraphs, and proper immaculate ones.   In retrospect,  the page wasn’t flawless and I didn’t expect it to be,  not that it would have bothered me if it was.   Yet,  I always give myself the right to fizzle.   I blame myself though for every single mistake and resort to a self pact that I will improve and embellish, but at the end of the day I know am a human being and imperfection is never a sin.  

That’s not an attitude am adopting just to ease things up for myself, nevertheless, I don’t know why should I flagellate myself up when no one asked me to. We set the bars and we are responsible how high should they get raised.

The new page:  I will work hard to make it brighter, fulfilling, enriching, and more intimate.   And my first liner would be “He who hurt thee but should be forgiven”

Published in: on October 29, 2007 at 10:11 pm Comments Off

So what?

I shouldn’t care, that was long ago. 

His eyes sparkeld and he merrily announced he has a “story”.  He started telling me and I drifted away (metaphorically that is), he thought am so induldged in his fariy tale.  He finished and I couldn’t fake it, I said am happy for him nothing in particular, it was like 30 awkward seconds till I started mumbling coherent words other than “interesting!”

It has been so long, and I should have seen this coming…we are all bound to fall. I am happy for him, am not jumping up and down and wishing him luck though.   Is it a relapse? is it that empty spot that he hypothetically fills whenever I need on a no strings attached manner? Is it the fact that he is not gonna be available whenever I need him? and here is the part that I so hate.. why on earth do I need him…we are not that close, we meet whenever any of us needs the other, we feel at ease together however…we like to keep our distances, we silently agreed on this rule since the revalation.

I so wanted to collapse and cry, but I remebered that “big girls don’t cry”

Published in: on October 20, 2007 at 10:26 pm Comments (12)

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

Published in: on October 2, 2007 at 11:23 am Comments (4)

Religious Leaders Call for Interfaith Fast

As per the website ; religious leaders in the United States called for an interfaith fast to end the War in Iraq.

We call on all Americans to join in fasting from dawn to dusk on Monday, October 8, to call for an end to the Iraq War. On this day, people of faith in local communities across our nation will act as catalysts to transform the meaning of the day from one of conquest to community and from violence to reverence.Just as Isaiah called the People Israel to hear the Yom Kippur fast as God’s call to feed the hungry, just as Jesus fasted in the wilderness, just as Christians through Lenten fasting and Muslims through Ramadan fasting have focused on spiritual transformation, just as Mohandas Gandhi, Cesar Chavez and others drew on fasting to change the course of history, so we call on all our communities of faith to draw now on fasting as a path toward inner spiritual transformation and outward social transformation.Ending this war can become the first step toward a policy that embodies a deeper, broader sense of generosity and community at home and in the world”

Published in: on September 26, 2007 at 1:23 pm Comments (1)

My before_I_die list

1-     Build a family

2-     Ride a bike

3-     Buy 3arooset Mouled “never had one”

4-     Perform Hajj

5-     Write a book; one that depicts different women from my family throughout different eras  from the 30s till now,

6-     At the age of 35 if I wasn’t married or dead, I would raise and support and orphan

7-     Find my peace

8-     Start a book club for kids

9-     Fly across Egypt in a  hot-air balloon

10- Meet Safinaz Kazem, Maya Angelou, or 3afreet Louisa May Alcott

11- Sleep (as in deep sleep)  in a hammock

12- Eat proper frito misto in Venice

13- Dance in a boat under moonlight

14- Read the Mathnawi in Arabic

15- See the northern lights

16- Learn to cook delicious food like my mom and grandma

17- Swim with baby dolphins

Will probably update this list every now and then :D

Published in: on September 25, 2007 at 1:36 pm Comments (5)

Ramadan Observations

- The “cultural” meal is quite heavy this year, isn’t it!!  I am not against it, however, I think it is too much for only one month, provided that away from Ramadan you would hanker any of those good events!!! I guess am a tad prejudiced against the long anticipated stuffed agenda.

- Note: I am not trying to be judgmental or anything but I noticed eno people are celebrating ramadan in a peculiar way!!

- Happens daily probably 5 minutes before iftar: it is quite common delwa2ti to see people stepping out of their cars with colemans, dates, cans, sweets, etc  to distribute them to passerbys. Ramadan KAREEM :D

Published in: on at 11:42 am Comments (2)

A piece of my mind

- A few days ago I was checking my notifications on the infamous Face Book and I found that Nag tagged me as someone who would most likely be able to love as if she’s never been hurt before.  That being said, I wondered!! (not  that am taking it seriously awi, however, people really have the impression that I can effortlessly budge from one relation to another)  

But for me it is quite different, I just dig deep and find my dark box of secrets, we all have our boxes, no?

In case you do not have one or never heard of, It is a hypothetical box where I tend to burry all my bitter experiences, sore memories, awkward moments, tears, infinite number of hate emails and SMSes, etc.  I tend to keep the good moments alive, I don’t burry them, I keep them around me..close to both my heart and mind.  And I  just MOVE ON.

 

- I have been through many relations…and when I say relations, I do mean every single one, even the ones I had to go through without the blessings of the other party.  However, the question here is; have I ever (truly) loved someone?  To be perfectly honest, there is only one I know of (someone who wasn’t much of a morning person, it took him an hour to become himself’) but anywayz, he is that one that I went on without his blessings, I broke up with him although we were never together, and all I wanted to do is hold a grudge. Couldn’t though.  Now after 2 years I can claim we are friends, we’re not good friends but we’re friends… friendly… Friendish!!!

 

  * Swans look prettier in cartoons, they are a tad freaky in reality

 

- Lately engaging myself in discussions became more of a burden.  People are becoming more intolerant and less receptive of  the other opinions. 

Whenever I start a conversation among any group of  people about a movie, incident, play, book, or a song, etc. the first thing you know it is a heated debate not a friendly discussion. However, debates have rules and all, but this kind of conversations usually get personal.  For a reason people tend to be rude and obscene to prove effective enthusiasm.  In any conversation  there always have to be affirmatives and negatives, that’s expected, but what I observe in such conversation is the lack of respect and understanding of the opposing opinion. I for one in favor of  any idea…which doesn’t mean that I would agree with it, but I respect it, I don’t ridicule it as I truly believe that  behind every single thought, idea, or opinion there is a very complicated process, and the outcome of this process differs according to the multiple and diverse ways of thinking.

 “There are many ways to categorize human beings,” she said.  “I separate them into those who become wrinkled up and those who wrinkle down, and I want to belong to the first group.  When I am old I want my face not to be sad.  I want to have laugh lines and take them with me to the other world. Because who knows what we’ll have to face there?” 
                                                                      From ”  from Women with Big Eyes by Angeles Mastretta

I go and you have a sun kissed day :D

p.s: I love when someone tells me have a sun-kissed day or morning, the mental image of being kissed by the sun-metaphorically not literally- makes me meza2tata..quite fascinating (me thinks)! :D

Published in: on September 18, 2007 at 1:02 pm Comments (8)

On Beauty and Supposedly Proud Horses

This morning I woke up with the mood of cruising around Heliopolis like the good old days. I asked mama if she wants something, fa she asked for 3eish baladi “awi” as I always like to put it (not that it is baladi awi or anything, it is actually yummi, I just like saying it that way) , I went to the “forn” at Game3 el Fat7, bought the bread and back to the car.

As I started the engine I noticed the garden facing Decorama “those who are familiar with the vicinity would know what am talking about exactly”, but for those who are not, Decorama is a big furniture store in Game3 El Fat7. The garden has been there forever, but apparently now the old –almost- green patch has undergone a face-lift, all fenced-up in a pretty nice way, and obviously well taken care of.

Fascinated at seeing this, I joyously stopped the engine, walked out of the car and started walking around the garden. At this point I came to find that the owner(s) of Decomara decided to take the responsibility of turning the common garden in front of their premises into a beautiful garden, a pleasant view for passerby’s and residents. I was really moved by the endeavor and notion. I personally think there is a message behind this attempt, not only promoting beauty but also to direct people’s attention and let them realize that common areas are not Government’s only responsibility; it is our responsibility as well. How beautiful our streets could be if each building, store, company or organization took the responsibility of revamping their neighborhood. I know this sound ancient and kinda repetitive, but believe it or not seeing it happening would get you all up and running, excited at the thought of waking up the next morning having breakfast on your balcony. Seriously, we are in dire need for some beauty in our streets and neighbors.

 

 

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Back to my car high and euphoric, I decided to go pay a little visit to the Shams Club Horses track, been a while since I’ve been there; couldn’t think of a better mood for such a visit ya3ni!! And let me tell you, I wish I didn’t go.

I was on the verge of the ugly crying seeing the horses all wounded-up, un-nutritiously thin, sad and frowning keda (I know horses are not happy animals by nature, you never see a horse with a happy face) bas they are always proud and full of life…those are really lifeless and monkasereen (I couldn’t find a proper English word to this)…the look in their eyes is totally beyond description, it killed me.

One of the guys working there noticed my disappointment fa he offered to show me “The Stallion”, a heck of an Arabian horse as per her description…I’ll keep my mouth shut and you judge!!

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Published in: Uncategorized on September 7, 2007 at 11:00 pm Comments (10)

Book Recommendation fel saree3

I so highly, exteremly, obdurately recommend Sara Gruen’s page-turner “Water for Elephants”.  Here is an excerpt.

Published in: Uncategorized on September 4, 2007 at 3:09 pm Comments (2)

Urgent: Volunteers needed for the Egyptian Food Bank

Volunteers are desperately needed for packaging in the Egyptian food bank.. please come and join. The packaging is being done at Olympic Group Warehouse right beside Olympic Group (Nasr City).

Their target for this year is 60,000 bags, and up till now only 8,000 bags have been packed. Bags contain food stuff such as rice, macaroni, beans, lentils, sugar, salt, tea, Dates, karkadeh and 2amar eldin.  They are available from 9 am, till “they drop” as per the coordinator I talked to.

Published in: Uncategorized on at 1:32 pm Comments (2)