Variations..

* A tribute to him...
I have been with him for many months now.. more than 2 years anyway but who's counting.. i used to wake up to his sweet voice.. he used to help me remember everything.. people always contacted him to deliver a message to me because they knew how special he was to my heart... i spent a lot of money on him, but i always thought he deserved it.. for he was my contact with the real world.. when he was tired and drained he used to tell me for he knew i was the only one who can bring back life into him... he was always there for me...
then i lost him.. i didnt even realize i was losing him.. its just that all of a sudden i looked around and he wasnt there anymore..
My dear one, i want you to realize that i will never forget you.. you will always be my first.. i want you to know that even tho i moved on, starting checking out others, and even settled for someone else, yet the memories i have with you are engraved in my mind... yes i was rewarded with someone better, but he will never take your place in my heart... I will miss hearing your voice and seeing through your eyes...
My dear T610, i will always love you... i hope you have moved on as well.. i hope that you affect the life of whoever took you away from me like you affected mine.. i hope you bring them tears and laughs and pains and joys like you brought to my life...
I am now with a K750i... he reminds me of you in so many ways... yet he is more advanced than you.. i promise you i will try to treat him better than i treated you.. i learned my lesson the hard way... i know i was hazardous to your health, but i hope you manage to recover wherever you are now..
i will miss you waking me up in the morning.. i will miss your lovely "esh7eneeni" sound when you're drained of energy... my new love knows about you.. and promised to make it up to me.. we'll see about that :D i know he has better eyesight than you, and i hope that helps me see what i used to overlook with a 2 mega pixel sight.....

I wont forget you, but its time to move on...

* Blink
i saw this movie yday... lovely...

* The Gun and the Olive Branch
We've had an older edition of this book by David Hirst at home.. and i have previously read sections of it a couple of years ago and weirdly enough liked it... History is relative, we know that.. but sometimes reading someone's side of history helps you to understand.. Anyway, so i was at Virgin last week and decided to get a non-fiction book when i found the 3rd edition on display... soooooooo, i decided i will get a fiction and will read the one we have at home after i finish the story i bought....

* What am reading...
so, when i was in Virgin looking for something to read, i got Jostein Gaarder's "The Ringmaster's Daughter".. its a pleasant book so far... i am almost halfway through altho i started on Wednesday and am being very lazy, so reading this quickly means that i like it :D

* Music
James Blunt :) check him out..

* One final note
May those who love us, love us
And those that don't love us,
May God turn their hearts;
And if He doesn't turn their hearts
May He turn their ankles,
So we'll know them by their limping.
-- An Old Irish Blessing

thoughts...

* Politics
dont worry.. am not talking about politics.. am talking about my last post who no one seemed to read except Mayonaisa (Duchess Meyo :)) and Nerro.. this means eno i either lost my popularity as a blogger so you stopped checking my posts, or that you dont like me talking political :D so until further notice, am back to normal mode :D

* BCC (not BBC)
for some -weird and unknown- reason, i dont like the BCC feature.. it just bugs me.. esp when ppl send you the kind of fwd that makes you think eno "hmmm.. i wonder who else they sent it to"... i dont know why i wanted to blog this point, but am sure i had a pretty good reason.. ah.. its the gam3eya thing.. ppl send a reminder to pay a gam3eya and i feel like am the only one who didnt pay, just to find eno no one paid.. 7aga keda :D

* Words I say a lot
-eno (eno ya3ni i use it like the lebanese use it.. i am not bluffing, i seriously do!)
-cool
-eshta
-fa eih? (as in "so you did kaza kaza, fa eih? what now?")
-7asal kheir (ppl hate it sometimes coz it makes them feel eno am shutting them up but i say it when sthg happens to me, not only when it happens to others)
-yalla ma3lish (it started as a joke but it caught on :))
-alright (pronounced "orrite" :D)
-ah ok (i say it a LOT)
-fahem/fahma asdi?
- blablabla
- Something/Someone is such a cow
-keda
-bta3

(lol after reading my most said words, i felt eno they say about me eno am a very lala person.. am not.. i just take things lightly and i dont always communicate my tension)

* The Greedy Culture
They call Egyptians a consumer culture.. (you can judge if you're ever in a supermarket outside Egypt and you track the behavior of buyers).. What i discovered that its a thing common among our Arab fellows as well... did you check MBC 4 ads? did you notice that two of them revolves on the "mafi" attitude? "Mafi Philadelphia.. Mafi masroof".. "Mafi Danao.. mafi danao??? mafi danaaaaooo"
eno ya3ni we're not that much of mafagee3 fa cut it out already!

hmmmmm.... c'est tout for now... wait.... no lyrics or quotes or speeches? hmmmm... am listening to "Feelin the same way all over again" for Norah Jones... not bloggable awi.. now there is a bloggable song, Gavin DeGraw "I Dont Want to be"

i have other bloggable thoughts... some of them will have to do with the "young people with disposable income" theory discussed by Anonymous (a.k.a hussam) @ M &S last week.. its actually an interesting topic..

bbye now,
N.

Us and Them...

Oh, the white folks hate the black folks,
And the black folks hate the white folks;
To hate all but the right folks
Is an old established rule.

But during National Brotherhood Week,
National Brotherhood Week,
Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark are dancing cheek to cheek.
It's fun to eulogize
The people you despise
As long as you don't let 'em in your school.

Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks,
And the rich folks hate the poor folks.
All of my folks hate all of your folks,
It's American as apple pie.

But during National Brotherhood Week,
National Brotherhood Week,
New Yorkers love the Puerto Ricans 'cause it's very chic.
Step up and shake the hand
Of someone you can't stand,
You can tolerate him if you try!

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Muslims,
And everybody hates the Jews.

But during National Brotherhood Week,
National Brotherhood Week,
It's National Everyone-Smile-At-One-Another-Hood Week.
Be nice to people who
Are inferior to you.
It's only for a week, so have no fear;
Be grateful that it doesn't last all year!

~ Tom Lehrer, National Brotherhood Week (a really nice song, check it out)


So, *what* is the deal? (a la Jerry Seinfeld).. why are we fighting the wrong battles? why are we "hating all but the right folks" as Lehrer says? are we turning into another Lebanon? getting mixed up in internal turmoil so much so that we forget to see the big picture?
What is happening in Alex? What is the truth behind what happened? And how about this guy he caught? did you see his picture in the papers? it's like someone told him "e3mel 3abeet" and they took his picture!
What is happening with Palestine? how come the Palestinian guy comes to Egypt and he doesnt meet the foreign affairs guy? did he forget to call before he comes so he found no one home?

We, as people in general and as egyptians in particular, like to be prejudiced on "us" and "them"... I just believe we choose the wrong us and them... we draw the lines at the wrong boundaries.

I know i have an anti-political inclination... but i cant keep it in...

Just blogging it out...

"Uncyclopedia" definitions..

* Depression is a recurring disease, observed when a person gets 'depressed' into a smaller size at a slow rate on the order of
This results in increased bone density, slimmer figure, and all the fluids in the body being squeezed out of every pore.

* Did you know that the origin of the name woman, is thought to come either from "Wow man (look at that babe)", or "Woe, man (she totally destroyed my life)"? Another theory is that it comes from "womb-man" - man with a womb

(lol i luv that "woman" one!)

* Delirium, formerly Delight, is the youngest of the Endless. Feeling overshadowed by her older siblings, she became a rebel and began to dye her hair crazy colors and act out, spontaneously creating butterflies and the like at inappropriate times. She is a sweet girl though, and all the other Endless love her and nurture her. She was perhaps most hurt when Destruction left, because the two of them shared a special bond.



thank you Tina for this lovely discovery!

Signing off,
N.

Boomerang-ing (Part II)

(read the whole post.. its cool)

* Music
i like abdelwahhab... i know thats a weird thing, but i really really think this guy is/was something.. he is a music genius... its true he has a lisp when he sings (u need to really listen in order to hear it) but his music is amazing... i used to listen to him when i was a baby so i grew to like him.. i like how he takes from different music genres and infuses it to make his own style..
Anyway, so i have this inner conviction that if i like a certain band/music that very few people tend to like, then mostly people who share this liking with me will have a lot in common with me deep down, even if it does not appear to the naked eye.. but it has to be "different" music.. just like Souad Massi.. Suzanne Vega.. and some others..

* Roger Waters & Bob Dylan
hmmmm... so in one of my Delirious moments i told Sherif (a.k.a Duke) "Bob Dylan doesnt know what he writes" (dont ask me why i said so.. no idea!).. so the other day i was listening to Desolation Row and i go like "so why are they painting the passports brown? whats the significance?".. he says mesh enti olti he doesnt know what he writes, then dont ask! so i am telling the story to Kareem, and he goes like "yanhar ethwed" (he doesnt have a lisp, he just says this phrase this way :D), so he says "yanhar ethwed.. enti olti keda 3ala Bob Dylan? enti mesh 3arfa meen Bob Dylan da ya benti? da Roger Waters bta3 amrika" so i wonder ya3ni eih keda? ommal Waters nafso men fein? he says eno men UK akeed.. so i go like "ehm.... Are Pink Floyd British?" and Kareem says yes tab3an... "you live, you learn.. at any rate, you live" ~TP

* Cigars and Red Wine
So it was K's bday last wednesday.. we went out blablabla, but before that we were meeting up on our own.. so i know this guy likes cigars. In fact i know this guy likes Maduro cigars (its a way of wrapping not a brand).. you would think knowing such information is enough for you to buy him a couple of good cigars for his birthday(only a COUPLE.. we dont want to kill him or my bank account!).. anyway so a thorough search in the Duty Free in City Stars yields nothing but disappointment since i didnt know which is which... yet, determined not to leave the shop empty handed, i get him a box of these, with Cappucino chocolate inside.. they really did look like the real thing with the stamp and all... I hope he didnt finish it because i want to try it :D
I had also gotten a bottle of Sparkling Grape Juice to sip by the nile... why i didnt know what the "Sparkling" part, because you cant fill up on sparkling juice, so we had to spill some of it because the lovely cork would not fit into the bottle again :D So, cigars and "red wine for non-drinkers" by the Nile... what more can you ask for? :D

* Last but not least (with special dedication to latantouna, a.k.a. Pinky not the Brain)
Ever since i first heard this song, I love it and cant believe its from Pink Floyd... and in fact i memorized the first part :) since Tina threatened me against posting lyrics, i thought "Why not?" ;)

I've got a bike
You can ride it if you like
It's got a basket
A bell that rings
And things to make it look good
I'd give it to you if I could
But I borrowed it

You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world
I'll give you anything
Everything if you want things

(Complete lyrics available here!)


* ONE LAST NOTE :D

Two is, as defined by other people, one more than Zero. It is also three more than Saturday. To be precise, it's three more than 3:31 PM on Saturday, but no one wants to get that in-depth.
Two is also used to calculate the Radius of a Square.
Until quite recently, most people believed that two could most nearly be approximated as "one plus one" (or 1+1 in shorthand notation), but recent advances in the science of numerology have now redefined two as being equivalent to certain large values of the number one (hence leading to the infamous "2=1 Theorem"). This discovery has prompted the creation of a number of mathematical hypotheses, including The Unified Number Postulate and "2+2=∞/n."

~ From http://uncyclopedia.org/ article on "Two" ;)

Boomerang-ing (Part I)

(know i should blog Budapest, but bear with me.. its coming up)

* Career Woman
not really.. but would like to be one _soon_ day isA :D right now it's more of a "career girl".. am still trying to find what am looking for... one would argue i dont know it yet.. but i do.. i am just not clear about it yet and so i dont want to share it... my ex-boss in my current company once told me sthg like "you have something very few people have.. you put passion in what you do and you do it with dedication" or something of the sort :) (of course that wasnt WA who said so.. God forbid he says something positive about me! it was SA akeed).. I know i put passion in what i do.. many times i take things personally in my hands and i get it done.. i know i let many people down, but that mostly happens when trying to please everyone..
i like the fact that some people (even if they are very few) consider me to be the person they go to when they have a question that goes like "whom do i go to if i want to....?" and i really hate it when i feel i've stopped contributing positively..

* Meshmesha 3awwww
Nerro, a fellow avid blogger, said in one of her recent posts that she doesnt like peaches and apricots.. and it reminded me when a girl at work was offering Chris and i some meshmesh (i still get mixed up which is which) and i said "no thank you" and she insisted so i said "asli bakhaf menno" and its not like am really scared of it.. i just dont feel comfortable around it because it is vulnerable (and not because of the skin like Nerro but because of insects)... bass people made a joke out of it and called it "meshmesha 3awwwww" :D

* Plasticine
I was at a big stationary (S&A) last saturday with nevine and i was amazed by the quantities and variety of colors they have :) i found also all sorts and sizes of play-dough or plasticine.. I bought a small piece of white plasticine (selsal) because i wasnt familiar with the type so i wanted to try it out.. and i now have it on my desk.. a friend at work made me a small white airplane (that i had to destroy for need of material :)) and another girl made me a chapeau with a ribbon thats on my monitor at work... i decided to take this dough and play around with it in meetings.. and also when i need to vent off at my desk.. its more fun than ur regular stress ball because it doesnt just spring back into place when u leave it, but it absorbs all ur stress to make even a silly looking clump sitting there on the desk..

hmmmm... i had two other points to talk about but the "lovely" blogger refreshed itself and so i lost them because i didnt save... so i will post this now and continue points tom :)

Over and out,

a bit of Delirium..

skjdhfjksdgfsdgsewr sirheroyi sadfsg?

i am staying up now to do some work (am too lazy to explain all this now fa later ba'a)
anyway so am talking to Kareem online... and i have this habit that i do when i get stuck for a reply on msn, i just go like writing gibberish.. (see post title for details ;)) Anyway, so i go like this.. at the same time i am trying to make Kareem understand something and he was trying to convince me with something (2 different issues.. i always multi-thread my conversations :D)
So all of a sudden i go like "Sometimes when am talking to you, i feel this is what you actually hear.. you hear Nagia saying "sdjkhnsdas siefw!!""

anyhooooo, i thought this is a bloggable thought! :D

i am working on a document that suuuuuuuuuucks.. actually the document itself is ok... but the document i am trying to streamline with is killing me... a clear sharp bright deadly plagiarised document! i am so shocked! i cant explain more.. anyway.. we all steal ideas, but there is an element of smartness that doesnt let you get caught!


Yalla ma3lesh! ;)

piece of my mind..

She sits in her corner
Singing herself to sleep
Wrapped in all of the promises
That no one seems to keep
She no longer cries to herself,
No tears left to wash away
Just diaries of empty pages,
Feelings gone astray
But she will sing

'Till everything burns
While everyone screams
Burning their lies
Burning my dreams
All of this hate
And all of this pain
I'll burn it all down
As my anger reigns
'Till everything burns

Been listening to this song on my way to work this morning.. It's a lovely song.. aside from the dark lyrics, its really good..

I was thinking of stuff to post on my way here but they totally slipped my mind now... Anyway, i spent an extremely lazy weekend... i needed it i think.. I managed to finish NG's book :D it was a lovely lovely read... it had to have a bit of a visual description that made me hurt (he is a bit violent sometimes in his stories) but it was nice all the same....
It was a story about stories, and about songs..
Maybe now i will officially start "I saw Ramallah", and maybe not.. i dont live in a fantasy land, and i wont mind reading something that painful.. its just that i started it and it didnt "catch" me so am not that interested to go on.. I mean i tried Ghassan Kanafani and i liked him.. altho he wrote about politics and pain.. i like Mahmoud Darwish, a palestinian poet who captures all scenes in his words.. but i didnt feel this one captured me.. i will give it a chance tho.. being the accomodating person that i am :D and i will see how it goes...

hmmmm... what else.. kefaya keda for the day...


Ah, last week, on Thurs, Sherif arranged an HR breakfast at Chantilly for all the HR dept, and guess what, they asked me to join.. me and Wael -company president- (i dont write full names to reduce the google-ability! ;)) anyway.. so i was telling SA that i now belong in the "friends of HR" club.. aslan i stayed longer in the dept than any of the girls present there now, so i think i earned the honorary degree :D

one last note, i noticed that the comments area of my posts is designed mainly so that my humble readers exchange comments among each other with no referance whatsoever to the witty post by me :D

Cheers,
N.

Just because..

"You are so terribly nimble, so clever. I distrust your cleverness. You make a wonderful pattern, everything is in its place, it looks convincingly clear, too clear. And meanwhile, where are you? Not on the clear surface of your ideas, but you have already sunk deeper, into darker regions, so that one only thinks one has been given all your thoughts, one only imagines you have emptied yourself in that clarity. But there are layers and layers -- you're bottomless, unfathomable. Your clearness is deceptive. You are the thinker who arouses most confusion in me, most doubt, most disturbance."
~Anaïs Nin, August 1932 "Henry and June"

I disregard the proportions, the measures, the tempo of the ordinary world. I refuse to live in the ordinary world as ordinary women. To enter ordinary relationships. I want ecstasy. I am a neurotic —in the sense that I live in my world. I will not adjust myself to the world. I am adjusted to myself.
~ Anaïs Nin, March 25, 1933

I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.
~ Anaïs Nin, July 7, 1934

I love your silences, they are like mine. You are the only being before whom I am not distressed by my own silences. You have a vehement silence, one feels it is charged with essences, it is a strangely alive silence, like a trap open over a well, from which one can hear the secret murmur of the earth itself.
~ Anaïs Nin, "Je suis le plus malade des Surrealistes" Under A Glass Bell (1944)


(She is a French-American woman writer, born in my month but almost 80 yrs before me... funny how her writing seems so much modern :D)

Anansi, my new friend...

I saw it on display.. It was one of a kind, so i kept following it with my eyes everytime they change its place lest someone else would get it before me.. it was the end of the month and the financials were rough, so i didnt have what it takes to make it all mine.. Duke & Meyo wanted to get it to me but proudly i refused and waited....

Finally, it is mine..... Neil Gaiman's "Anansi Boys", the one copy that was in Virgin.. a lovely dark blue hardcover...

To get an idea of how i like this book, i even loved the dedication.. am in Chapter 3 now and it keeps getting better :)

I will only quote the dedication here:

"You know how it is, you pick up a book, flip to the dedication, and find that, once again, the author has dedicated a book to someone else and not to you.
Not this time.
Because we haven't yet met/have only a glancing acquaintance/are just crazy about each other/haven't seen each other in much too long/are in some way related/will never meet, but will, I trust, despite that, always think fondly of each other...
This one's for you.
With you know what, and you probably know why."


yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! my patience has paid off... Neil has finally dedicated a book for *me*!

"With you know what, and you probably know why." for me was "With eternal awe and admiration, because you're worth it" ("Because am worth it" like the L'Oreal beauty campaign)

searching on google, i found MANY ppl who blogged the fact that they liked this particular dedication because it doesnt go like "this is for the readers or the fans or whatever"..

I would luv to attend a book signing once for some writer i like... please?

Those who see the light..

In his genius reformatory philosophical work "The Republic", Plato establishes the grounds for creating a republic in the most "optimum"/perfectionist way (for no other choice of word that popped in my head)... Not a kingdom or an empire, but a republic...

Now am not a person who enjoys old literature, but i really enjoyed reading The Republic and many of its critique articles... i even read much more than what was required back at uni.. It amazes you how a book written around 390 years B.C. has so much reform in it, and yet, no one listened... among other things, he talked about women's education! Actually, he had a plan drawn out for a close-to-perfect education system... one that we are currently getting closer to but yet so far..

Anyway, what am about to write now is an idea that possessed me in this book; the allegory of the cave.. An allegory is a story or a representation conveying a meaning deeper and higher than its literal meaning...
Plato's allegory goes that there is a cave with a large wall.. in this cave there is a set of prisoners tied to have their backs to the cave's entrance and are facing the huge wall... behind them, outside the entrance there is an enormous fire.. sometimes people and animals pass outside the entrance and between the fire and the cave, thus casting shadows on the wall.... the prisoners -having never seen the outside- mistake these shadows for the real thing.. the voices of the people outside reflect as echo on the wall, and appear to the prisoners to be coming out of the shadows on the wall...

So mainly the prisoners see shadows and hear echoes... now imagine a prisoner was released and goes outside... he would be blinded by the sun (or at night-time by the fire), then as he slowly adjusts to reality, he will start to see things as they are... he will "see the light"..

Having seen the light, it is the free man's duty, even his obligation, to go back to the cave and 'enlighten' his fellow men.... once he goes back to the cave, his eyes will have trouble adjusting to total darkness again, he would have to step into the darkness again to free/enlighten his fellow prisoners.... Only to be faced by resistance from those not wanting to be freed... those who are happy with the only truth they ever knew: the shadows and the echos...

Do we choose to stay in the dark? do those who think they see the light really see it, or is it a mere representation on a huge wall??


Signing off,
N.

P.S. check wikipedia's allegory of the cave article..

The world is flat!

when i saw this book @ Diwan, i thought it was a fiction book.. sort of like the Pratchett/Gaiman things i read :D.. turns out its a collection of political essays! Anyway, this reminds me of a Suzanne Vega song called "The World before Columbus"...............

about this song, Vega said "The idea of the world before Columbus came because I have a cat at home, and this cat scratched my eye -just playing, and it became infected and I had to wear an eyepatch for about a week. The thing I noticed was that the world was really flat seeing the world that way. It struck me as funny and I was writing it down and I said the world was as flat as the world before Columbus."

Read thru... and enjoy :) (you can listen to an excerpt of the song here

If your love were taken from me
Every color would be black and white
It would be as flat as the world before Columbus
That's the day that I lose half my sight

If your life were taken from me
All the trees would freeze in this cold ground
It would be as cruel as the world before Columbus
Sail to the edge and I'd be there looking down

Those men who lust for land
And for riches strange and new
Who love those trinkets of desire
Oh they never will have you
And they'll never know the gold
Or the copper in your hair
How could they weigh
the worth of you so rare

If your love were taken from me
Every light that's bright would soon go dim
It would be as dark as the world before Columbus
Down the waterfall and I'd swim over the brim

Those men who lust for land
And for riches strange and new
Who love those trinkets of desire
Oh they will never have you
And they'll never know the gold
Or the copper in your hair
How could they weigh
the worth of you so rare

Of Lady Godiva, Cats, and Bookmarks (Addendum)

Bey2ollak eno Lady Godiva was married to a guy who enforced really harsh taxes on his people.. The lady, being of a kind heart, tried to talk her husband out of it... the people told her eno please talk to him w keda.. So her husband, a guy who obviously enjoys a good laugh, made a bet with her that if she would ride through the city totally naked except for her long hair, he would reduce/cancel the taxes...
Lady Godiva said "ok eshta cool" (she said them in that order).. and she makes a deal with the people of the city that they stay inside and close their windows while she rides through the streets.. the people say "mashi ok" (after all, she is doing *them* a favor fa 3eib ya3ni!)
They all stick to their word, except for one who makes holes in the window shutters and peeps at her.. Hence the term "Peeping Tom" :)
you can read the Wikipedia article about that....

Now this talk about Lady Godiva is because this name also refers to one of the world's best chocolate companies, Godiva.

Yesterday, i received Duke's and Duchess' bday gift.. they took me out to dinner (actually "linner", a lunch/dinner combination) at Chilis, then gave me a box of Godiva Truffles that he got from Brussels, an amazing coloful mug with two cats -their faces half-painted with golden from Frankfurt, and a painted calendar that is also twelve bookmarks (each month is taken out to make a separate bookmark) that Meyo got me from Turkey :)

So, its an international gift (or gifts) :D

Read the previous post if you didnt, i blogged twice today! :)

clumps and chunks..

* What am reading
I spent last weekend (not the one that just passed, the one before it) sick in bed.. Thursday night i was with Kareem, Meyo, and Sherif in City stars then i decided i cant stay any longer because am starting to feel dizzy and drained so i went home.. Anyway so it turned out i spent the whole weekend in bed with a bit of a fever and totally drained of energy.. during this weekend i finished two *lovely* books.. The Solitare Mystery for Jostein Gaarder (the author of Sophie's World) and "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon. Weirdly enough, both books were such a joy to read... they both belong to the Karim Sobhi's collection that i claimed as mine :D It's been such a long time since i last read something that impressed me, and both books, esp. the second, got me totally hooked!! i definitely recommend them.... the week after that i didnt read anything of value (i discovered that i started to sleep late, which makes it hard to read in bed these days).. i think i might start with "I Saw Ramallah" for Mourid Barghouti... unfortunately it is out of print, so i could only get the English translation.. I think i will try to start on it tonight...

* Bloggable thoughts
Kareem claims i always steal his thoughts when we're talking and we come up with something and i go like "This is totally a bloggable thought" :D Thr truth is, it is usually something we both come up with.... You need to learn to share the credit ;)
One of *our* latest bloggable thoughts say that since both our phone bills exploded dramatically in the past months, then Vodafone and Mobinil are probably spending each night celebrating... dancing the night away, and opening champagne bottles in the glory of another day added to our bills :D

* Birthday
Last Wednesday was my birthday... (am starting to get bored now and thinking to call this blog off, but no i will go on).... Celebrating this glorious occasion, ppl at work got me a cake and surprised (as in _really_ surprised me) at my cubicle... i knew they were going to do something for me... it gets very predictable when u find ppl who hardly know you saying Happy Birthday and all :D Then something funny happened, one of my friends was like "sorry i wont be able to make tonite to Viking" so i was like totally silent.. fa she said "uh-oh did i screw it up?" i said i think so coz i dont know what ur talking about.. so another friend says that they were planning to do something for me but when they knew that am going out with Kareem, they changed their minds and decided to make it another day so pretend u didnt hear anything blablabla.... So Kareem picks me up at 7.... i initially think we're going to dine in Zamalek (he said Zamalek somewhere in his talks).. turns out we're staying in helio... he tells me he got me gift vouchers from Diwan and Virgin so that i might get whatever i want and all... i think "Bummer! i hate to pick my own gifts" but i tell him its cool and thank you but u have to choose them with me and all.. anyway, so he says i made us a reservation at Viking since u wanna go, so i tell him the story of the ppl at work and do u still wanna go, he says yes... so i think ok i wont burst his bubble...

To cut an extremely long story short: he organized a bday for me and invited my friends and our common friends... the place wasnt as good as we thought but i sooooooooooooo wanted to try it, so i got my wish... i had an extremely nice time... _and_ he didnt get me gift vouchers after all, he got me a lovely Esprit watch :D (i've been wanting a wristwatch for so long but i didnt expect one).. Thank you everyone :)

some ppl i wanted to see but couldnt:
-Duke; he was in Brussels, couldnt call me coz my fone was dead (as da wife told me).. but Mayo Ze Lovely came and it was enough..
-Karembu & Chris; in the states, and i had to remind Karim of my bday anyway
- Nevine Fouda, Nevine Nabil (who was an essential part of the work bday along with Zeww), Emy... were in Cairo but had excuses...

* Google-able!
i discovered that blogspot is highly google-able.. hence, i decided to try and not use any words that are highly searchable... i like to believe i can somehow restrict access to my blog.. (even tho am publishing my thoughts on the World Wide Web :))

* Quotables ;)
You live and learn. At any rate, you live. ~Douglas Adams

The saddest song you ever heard - the most you said with just one word
The loneliest prayer you ever prayed - the truest vow you ever made
What makes you laugh, what makes you cry
What makes you mad, what gets you by
You highest high, your lowest low - these things I want to know

I wanna know you - like I know myself
I’m waitin’ for you - there ain’t no one else
Talk to me baby - scream and shout
I wanna know you - inside out

~ Bryan Adams, Inside Out


Cheers,
N.


p.s. Another addendum to this post will come later today :)

Don't think twice...

(I knew that song a long time ago.. and for some reason it reminds me of Mai -Duchess-, we sang it together the "dont think twice its alright" line only :) I luv its lyrics and its melody.. Enjoy)

It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don't matter, anyhow
An' it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don't know by now
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I'll be gone
You're the reason I'm trav'lin' on
Don't think twice, it's all right

It ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
That light I never knowed
An' it ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
I'm on the dark side of the road
Still I wish there was somethin' you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talkin' anyway
So don't think twice, it's all right

It ain't no use in callin' out my name, gal
Like you never did before
It ain't no use in callin' out my name, gal
I can't hear you any more
I'm a-thinkin' and a-wond'rin' all the way down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I'm told
I give her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don't think twice, it's all right

I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
But goodbye's too good a word, gal
So I'll just say fare thee well
I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right

Of CrocoNile, Inherently Happy People, and Books

Last Thursday we were going out with Mai & Sherif (a.k.a Duchess and Duke) for movies and/or dinner... So, Kareem was telling me online that Heba is telling him to come to dinner(Heba is our friend from uni, our here refer to M & S & myself).. first he says eno heba says Croconile is cute then says about the dinner.. (for those who dont know, Croconile is the embelm for the African Cup thats going on these days).. so we go to Chilis and heba doesnt come.. while we're there, the TV shows that funny Crocodile and i go like "hey hey Kareem its your friend" and he draws the blankest expression. And again i say "Kareem its the one you and heba like", again no response.. so i go like "ok whatever may be he doesnt want to talk oddam mai and sherif about it, but why? Is it embarrassing to like the logo?" (altho i personally hate it.. it looks childish!)

Anyway, so last night am on the fone with him and i bring up this issue.. and guess what.... he goes like "aaahh CrocoNile!!! She was talking about Chilis so when she said CrocNile i thought it was a place like Nile City keda.. and we were in Chilis i had no idea why you kept telling me here is your crocodile friend" i laugh so hard that it hurts and i claim this thought as MY bloggable thought (to his discontent tab3an!) So, here goes!

I am an Inherently Happy Person.. meaning, i have my ups and downs, and many many times am in the blackest of moods, but even in these times, i am able to enjoy life and to savor it.. i try to sieze oppurtunities and to make them a reason of happiness and contentment... So last night (in the same call) i tell Kareem that he is sooooooooo not like that and i decide that he probably has a book with dark thoughts to remind him of dark thoughts whenever he is happy so that he doesnt forget himself in this happiness... He says yes on his bedside table i have this "Advanced Darkness" book and then he comes back at me by saying that on MY bedside table i probably have the "The Road to Lala Land for Dummies", who in his opinion dont need it since Dummies are already in their lala land.... another bloggable thought inspired by him... and by the way, i luv Lala land :D

Books... I finished TP's "Last Hero" yday.. it was VERY cool.. esp that it was illustrated as well... Last night i started and finished "The Wolves in the Wall" for Neil Gaiman.. i got a group of books that Karim (not Kareem) wanted to deliver to his family, and i decided (after his permission ;)) to read the ones i like first before delivering them... I will start with "The Solitaire Mystery" by Jostein Gaarder (same author of Sophie's World), it seems like a *very* interesting book.. we will see :) been sometime since i last read something that "moved" me....

One last note, last Friday, i am on the phone with Kareem and we're having a discussion.. 10 minutes later he calls me back, tells me to come down in 5 mins coz he's on the way... anyway, turns out he got me a hot apple pie that his mom just made (because i had once -jokingly- asked him for one)... a whole warm apple pie dish... a delicious one... sank you kareem and isA you will try mine one day ;) (he already tried my lemon meringue pie once :D)


Zat's it for the day...

Bisous,
N.

Me and my Frog Prince

Did I ever tell you about my Frog Prince? I think i did once when i mentioned my 3 beliefs.. (no i wont search back and put a link here for that post! Go and search if you want! :)

I have a stuffed frog prince holding a rose that my sister got to me, it resides on my desk at work (well, actually it currently resides on Ayssel's desk these days to bring her some sunshine)

Anyway, i thought i'd salute all the frog princes and princesses out there ;)

Had a long post in mind but am too lazy now...

Cheers,
N.

* Saint Catherine
In Nerro's arabic blog, she talks about her trip to Saint Catherine.. i took a similar hike up 3, no 4, years ago... unfortunately we didnt manage to make it up in time for sunrise, but it was a glorious experience all the same.... I remember i was actually going to give up 10 stairs away from the top.. i just sat down and was like "you go on without me, i'll wait for you here!" (it wasnt the distance at all.. it was the cold.. i couldnt believe i can ever get that cold in Egypt..)

Anyway, so during the hike up, i was with a couple of girl friends (we were a big group but other ppl were either ahead or behind)... i like to take few breaks because i have a short breath so i prefer to walk and walk as much as i can take it because if i rest, it will take me long to regain my breathing.. so i move ahead of them while they rest until i reach a point where i have to rest... since i walk faster than average, i had like 45 minutes to kill until they catch up... during these 45 minutes a _lot_ of thinking went in my mind... and i mean a lot... i remember thinking so hard about stuff that tears started streaming down my face (a very stupid thing because they freeze on the spot :)) I just thought about many decisions that i made or was making at the time.. weirdly enough, back then i didnt have much to ponder about as much as i do now.. i could use a looooooong hike up in times like these :)

* What am reading
Finally finally finally i finished TP's discworld novel, Night Watch.... Duke, i'll return it to you soon... it was nice and all but still, may i never get that stuck in a book again... i think i will start Neil Gaiman's book of dreams that karembu got me (i can start with the Chris TP book, but too much TP is going to kill me! altho on 2nd thought, the book looks very inviting ;))....

* Song of the week....
Tired of Being Sorry by Ringside.. i didnt know the band or the song by i heard it on FM radio and loved it...

I don't know why
You want to follow me tonight
When the rest of the world
With whom I've crossed and I've quarreled
Let's me down so
For a thousand reasons that I know
To share forever the unrest
With all the demons I possess
Beneath the silver moon

Maybe you were right
But baby I was lonely
I don't want to fight
I'm tired of being sorry

* 2005: a Year in Review....
i started preparing for this post.. got (or borrowed ;)) the idea from Duke el sara7a :D

* My newest item
A colored scarf that Kareem got me last week :D i luv scarves, and this one is just soooooooooo cool.. it has all colors keda vertifcally, so the coolest thing is that it matches almost anything i can possibly think of wearing (not that i mind that my colors match anyway as long as i like them :D) we spent weeks aslan looking for one like this when we just ran into it in a shop's window by pure luck.. i luv it.. can i have another one?

The time has come.....

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

~Lewis Carroll, The Walrus and the Carpenter (a very cool thing to read)

So, the time has come i think, to talk about everything.. basically talk with myself about everything in my life... it's the end of the year, time for employee performance appraisals :) so i thought what the hell, i might as well have an appraisal session for myself... contrary to what some might think, i am actually a harsh judge on myself.. I might not appear to you, the reader, as someone who has a clear view of where her life is going and a clear plan on how to get there.... but i do... yes, i may take the longer route, but come on, at least i enjoy the scenery :) and when am old and wrinkled, it's memories of the scenery that remain.. but i always keep my ultimate plans to myself... why? i dont know, i just like it better this way.. you dont get to discuss your plans with people and maybe need to defend them.. and you dont let ppl down when u make a change of plans.. plus, i dont like talk talk talk and no action.. i tell people about dreams, aspirations, sometimes.. but not about plans, unless it involves them.. but i do have some clear destinations in this cloudy head of mine :)

* What I'm reading
These days am still reading Terry Pratchett's Night Watch that i borrowed from Duke (btw, Duke and Da Wife and Ta77an and another friend are in Turkey now for new year's :)) ... i've been very slow on reading the past few weeks, thats why i didnt finish this book till now... When i finish it, my next read is ready: when Karim came he got me The Book of Dreams edited by Neil Gaiman.. its a collection of short stories by different writers about The Sandman and other Endless siblings (who were originally created by NG)

* A-HA, Travis, Oasis, Queen, and the rest..
These are all bands i learned to like from Du my friend... i just remembered because i listened to one song lately that reminded me.. Velvet for A-HA ("her skin is like velvet") a very very sweet song.. try it..

* Song of the post ;)
many many..... the one thats going thru my mind since i heard on the radio yday is Hunter for Dido... i luv her lyrics in general, and this one in particular is sooo cool...
I want to be a hunter again
I want to see the world alone again
To take a chance on life again
So let me go
Let me leave
(am pasting it so that it plays thru your head too :))

* ITWorx is now a CMMI Level 3 certified organization! :)
We just got certified today (well, technically yday since its 1 am).. for anyone who is interested, the CMMI-L3 model consists of 17 process areas.. Organizational Training is one of them, and it was my thing... apparently the indian appraisal guy was really impressed by the efforts of the training function (a.k.a ME!) and by how the measurements are collected effectively and used innovatively for improving the quality of training.. blablabla...

* Smells I like
Fresh rain
freshly brewed good coffee in open air
Good fresh bakery
libraries -more than bookstores- (there is this distinct smell to books...)
Baby powder
the "smell" of the air in a clean place (mountain/sea)

* I now noticed that my blog space is one year old.. From my last days in IBM :D
So much has happened since then, its like i'm going back in history when i read this..