Of Poisons

Poison. It's always a poison. You hardly ingest a poison intentionally, although many people do, but it mostly sneaks in, or gets sneaked in.
When did you first get poisoned? I don't know. Some of these are slow killers. With small doses over a long time, it's hard to tell when it first got into your system. Even if you could remember when you started feeling that something is going wrong, it won't necessarily be an accurate way to tell. You could have been unwell for long before and were just too busy to notice.

Bottom line, you got poisoned. And suddenly you realize that for a long time you haven't been the person you've known for all your life. The things that used to interest you just don't anymore. New things are catching your attention. Your view of things is changing. You are doing things you've always considered yourself too smart or too good for doing. You realize that, just like everybody else, you too got poisoned.
Why would I call such a process "poison"? True it might seem like just change that happens normally to anyone. It might well enough be change, but a change that turns you to a stranger you don't like is definitely worth calling a poison.

So what was it? What was your poison? What thought crept into your mind? What words did you hear?Something must have triggered all that. There is no such things as auto-antibodies against your mind and soul, but there has always been a poison.

How did this poison work? I'd know if I knew how you perceive the knowledge of things not good for you and keep yourself away from them (and turning knowledge into full perception on which sensible action is based is not always the easiest thing to do). They are not necessarily wrong for everybody else but you know your old self enough to know that these things won't be particularly good in your case. You know that but somewhere in your head doesn't perceive it well enough and continues to push the rest of you towards the-in-your-case destructive targets. That part seems like where self control exists, for despite the fact that all the other parts of your head perceive the fact very well, they still obey the pushing of the stray part driving you while being completely aware of it to destruction. And that part, that pan-controller part, is exactly where the poison has hit.

The good news is that admitting the existence of a disease is the first step towards curing it. But is there such a thing as an antidote in such a case? Unluckily your brain cells don't regenerate, and if the poison has killed them we probably can't get them back for you. Implanting new ones won't do any good either, because then your self control will never be the same as your old self, which doesn't place you anywhere better than where you are now. Hope is that they are not dead yet, they're just inflamed and flaring like mad and can be soothed to calmness and sanity once more.

Round #3: Cardiology

Yes, I've noticed that last time it was Round 1, but seriously, Round 2 has been Dermatology. And if you found the post about Chest Medicine boring, I assure you that talking about glancing at people's hands for 2 weeks would have been infinitely more boring (not to mention the bore of having to physically exist there for 2 weeks). So let's just pretend it's never happened.

We're almost done with Cardiology. A fascinating science that I would have loved to spend more time on. The thing is that you spend like 9 days with wide opened eyes and dropped jaw every time anybody tries to make you understand anything, and just when you're about to understand what you are supposed to be doing in the first place, your time is up! and you have to move on to another Round where you spend another 9 days of wide open eyes and dropped jaw.

Cardiology is basically like Maths. The heart is a machine that works according to the most accurately synchronized rules in your body, and even when it's sick, it obeys another set of sickness rules. Once you grasp  these rules you can workout any clinical issue you're supposed to solve.
Assuming you get through understanding and remembering all the rules, you have to get through the hardest part, that is clinical examination. You have to auscultate the heart and detect events that occur in fractions of seconds. You have to differentiate sounds that overlap each other and tell what happened before what. Rumor has it that these things get easier by practice, but 2 weeks is not enough time to practice anything at all.
But truth be said, who would have ever thought that we have a "heartman"? A doll that is adjusted to simulate auscultatory findings of different cardiac conditions. After auscultating the doll, we thought everything perfectly made sense and that we could go back to the ward and immediately be cardiologists and start diagnosing cases. But the next day brought our senses back. The doll shows the standard typical sounds described in books, has a longer cardiac cycle and slower breathing rate than that in humans, which gives you time to hear well and analyze what you've heard, making the experience completely different from that you'd have with real life patients. So it's practice, practice and only practice, the key to learning any clinical skill in medicine.

Diagnostic and therapeutic techniques in cardiology  are constantly under development. Even beginning to understand how the technique works and how to interpret its data takes many hours as well as many textbooks. We're only taught crumbs of course.
 
One of the branches I'd tag "to be considered".  And who knows? May be someday.

Brave New World.. And A Man Who Dreams of Fewer Things Than There are in Heaven and Earth

"We are not our own any more than what we possess is our own. We did not make ourselves, we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We are not our own masters. We are God’s property. Is it not our happiness thus to view the matter? Is it any happiness or any comfort, to consider that we are our own? It may be thought so by the young and prosperous. These may think it a great thing to have everything, as they suppose, their own way-to depend on no one-to have to think of nothing out of sight, to be without the irksomeness of continual acknowledgment, continual prayer, continual reference of what they do to the will of another. But as time goes on, they, as all men, will find that independence was not made for man-that it is an unnatural state- will do for a while, but will not carry us on safely to the end.
A man grows old; he feels in himself that radical sense of weakness, of listlessness, of discomfort, which accompanies the advance of age; and, feeling thus, imagines himself merely sick, lulling his fears with the notion that this distressing condition is due to some particular cause, from which, as from an illness, he hopes to recover. Vain imaginings! That sickness is old age; and a horrible disease it is. They say that it is the fear of death and of what comes after death that makes men turn to religion as they advance in years. But my own experience has given me the conviction that, quite apart from any such terrors or imaginings, the religious sentiment tends to develop as we grow older; to develop because, as the passions grow calm, as the fancy and sensibilities are less excited and less excitable, our reason becomes less troubled in its working, less obscured by the images, desires and distractions, in which it used to be absorbed; whereupon God emerges as from behind a cloud; our soul feels, sees, turns towards the source of all light; turns naturally and inevitably; for now that all that gave to the world of sensations its life and charms has begun to leak away from us, now that phenomenal existence is no more bolstered up by impressions from within or from without, we feel the need to lean on something that abides, something that will never play us false-a reality, an absolute and everlasting truth. Yes, we inevitably turn to God; for this religious sentiment is of its nature so pure, so delightful to the soul that experiences it, that it makes up to us for all our other losses."

From Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

Precariousness

One shouldn't write during such times.  Why would you? These are times of mass events that sweep everything in its way. Times when the value of an individual completely disappears to give way to the value of the crowd, when you don't exist at all unless you are a part of a huge determined crowd that is up to something and won't back off until they've had it. Times of action. Times of endless talking yet no one listens to anyone at all. Times when the progress of events is pushed by a force that cannot be seen nor understood. Times of uncertainty when you know everything and yet not sure of anything at all. Times when the future totally eclipses and no glimpse of it can be seen or even predicted.

Who cares what you think at such times? Who would want to listen? There is only the rallying, the cheering, the storm. History is in the make, and you either participate or shut up and watch. When the angry demonstrators are passing by you, you join them or you just step out of their way. There is no room for side-road rooting here.

You still exist though. Your life and the events tangle together yet find a way to coexist somehow. something I could have never imagined. When reading books or watching movies about revolutions, the focus on the events gives you the impression that life stops and holds its breath in anticipation till it's over. To have an on going revolution and still go to college in the morning, go home and study, take exams, talk to friends, follow the news, join the demonstrations (not that I do), discuss cardiology clinical tutorials and the uprising simultaneously, is something I could have never imagined. A modified on the edge sort of life but still a life.

You learn to appreciate small things you've always taken for granted. Like not having to worry about  returning home before its dark. Like the luxury of worrying about how well you'd do on an exam instead of worrying whether the exam can be held under such circumstances or not, whether you'd be able to make it to the exam or not. Distant gunshots or screams arise some faint sense of curiosity in you but doesn't necessarily make you move out of your chair. Listening to the international news about street fights, explosions, shootings, snipers, riots and exclaiming "Thank God I'm not there!". Trivials as these things are, they mean security and consequently they mean everything. But security is never an unpaid for gift, for some nations they just have to get a job and work hard to be secure and that's it, for others they have to risk complete loss of everything they ever had -including their lives- in order to be secure, which is the most sensible paradox of all time, the paradox of a revolution.

Who cares what you think at such times?

Egyptians have chosen to play the game the hard way, that is the idealistic way. We have handed the revolution happily to those who we revolted against them, and now we are doing what should have been done long ago after so long a delay, too late that it makes you wonder if now is the right time for amendments anyway. We are paying the price of looking the other way and ignoring obvious facts for so long, we are paying the price of yielding to the continuously infused idea of not allowing this revolution to have a face, a trusted leadership that would take over, and instead leaving the masses, full of  dreams of a better future and rage over long reigning oppression and tyranny, leaderless, processing a decision of action in 80 million brains, each with its views, interests, fears and hopes, leading into the current chaos we are marching through. But I won't go into that any furthur, because as I said, no one cares what I think.

How much would you pay to have a quick peep at the future to see how things would turn out? But all we can do is wait, and so we wait...

Depression, Mood Swings, Suicidal Thoughts!

We all have bad days. We all have times when we feel absolutely down with no hope for feeling better ever again. But we don't all realise that we ALL do that!


That we all experience both joyful and depressing events in our every day's life is out of question. Some of the distressing events can be worked out and fixed, like failing a subject, losing a job, money crises... Tough problems as they might be but they are all solvable in a way or another. Other things just happen and there isn't the least thing you can do about them, like the death of a dear one, when there is nothing to be done except trying to move on.

That's not the sort of thing that I'm talking about here, I am talking about the blues which come from nowhere at all. You are a perfectly healthy successful person and supposed to be living the best days of your life, and yet you're always talking about how sad and miserable you are. If you are asked why, you find yourself unable to state good materialistic sensible reasons, you probably sigh, or turn the philosophical abstract mode on with a different issue every time.


There you are going down either one of two lanes: You really have depression as in the illness depression and not just a cranky mood that happens often enough and would go away after a good day out with your friends. Or you are one of these "I am suffering because I am different and no one can understand that". I am not a shrink but I've been around lots of people and that's all you need I guess to see this fact: some people think that you can't be a smart special person without being in the depressed mode all the time. It adds something to their character. It makes them think they understand life better than others and that they are capable of feeling and perceiving things that are just beyond the understanding of all the other happy fools they are surrounded by all day. True that the separating line between genius and mentally disturbed is well known to be blurred and swinging all the time, but let me remind you again that the line swings between genius (all bright and glittering word as it is) and Mentally disturbed (a serious condition that hardly ends well, and when it comes to an end you probably would be experiencing the real misery and wishing you have never started such a game in the first place). Are you sure you want to swing over there? Think again.
Another disappointing idea is that we ALL have these moments! It happens at any given time that some one would look at life and sigh: "what an ugly scene!". Except that many people don't talk about these moments and don't air them in any way, they just put up with them until they're over. This makes the idea of mood swings a fairly enough common idea with no specialness whatsoever no matter how you try to turn it inside out looking for anything into it.

The Online life gives room for lots of that and introduces you to lots of these people. You'd specially see lots of girls so much into the character of the black dressed girl reciting dark romantic poetry with tears in her eyes, which is fun and attractive for sometime but definitely gets disturbingly ridiculous when used for every minute of your life, and in both cases there is nothing special about it at all.

We are all different. We all think we are not understood. We all have mood swings and moments when life looks unbearable. and above all, we all think that we are the only ones experiencing that. Just keep this thought in mind next time a mood swing gets enjoyably longer than usual.

Twentysomething

I turned twenty two this month..

Yeah, I know. There is no need for the dramatic ".." after stating that you've turned twenty two. That's what I think too. But let's see about this anyway.

Since me and my friends have turned twenty and I've endlessly heard this: "We're getting old".. "I don't want anyone to know my age anymore".. "I'm removing my birth year on FB".. "Aaaaaaaaah!".. All of these with an ascending intensity with each year of course.

At first, I thought they were kidding. I mean, unless you are considering a modeling career, you shouldn't start calling yourself "old" at twenty two. In fact, as med students, the exact opposite is true. Your experience increase with years, you learn more, you acquire more skills. In short, years grant you acknowledgment and value.

The passage of years reminds you though of how precious every minute is. With every year that passes there are things that are gone forever. Being twenty two means that you'll never be the brilliant third year med student who made a brilliant discovery that would award you The Noble Prize years later (confidently assuming you are not the discoverer of Helicobacter Pylori reading this)

Few days ago a couple of high school girls shared a cab with me. They went on talking about school and courses and teachers and all the endless sanawya amma circus, and they happened to have the same teachers I had back in high school. They had the same worries, same comments on the teachers, same complaints and even same jokes. At that moment all these memories came very vividly back to me as if I were still living through them, and then I thought "It has been five years"! How come it feels just like the other day?

Friends I've known since I was six and spent the entire school years with, each of us took a different road when we went to college. I still have precious few of them very close till now, but most of them have turned into complete strangers with lives I know nothing about. We used to share every detail of our lives together one day, years ago.

Everyday that passes answers some questions about your future. Everyday takes you a step forward towards the person you'll end up being. Then one day you'll realize that you finally "are". Every aspect of you has come to existence and there aren't many questions left to be answered. I think it would be a moment both relieving and fearful. Life loses its glamour when there is nothing left to curiously wait for, nothing left to hunt and chase, no more hopes for change, for being a better person than the one you are today. You are what you are and there can't be more to it. A dreadful moment it is, and if I live long enough to it, I don't want to look back and feel I've wasted a lifetime.

Twenty two is not old. Twenty two means that "now" will probably lie in your past more than it has lied in your future as all your life still stretches ahead of you. You can still be any one, go anywhere, make new friends and still get to spend a lifetime with them. Twenty two means you still have time to build a whole new world around you. You can still fix yesterday's mistakes and make new ones. It means the best hasn't come yet.

Twenty two definitely means you're young, in every meaning the word could give..

Round #1: Chest Medicine

It's my fifth year with medicine. One of the two "season finale" years that do last for a whole year, starting this October and supposed to end next October inshaa Allah, meaning that last year's class are not done with their finals yet (and how I'll feel a lot better when they do!). The idea of a 12 months school year itself is intimidating, let alone studying the mighty Internal Medicine for the year, basically made by med students into a mythical monster that has you to torture for months and months. I don't know about what the rest of the world does, but it seems wrong to me to jam Internal Medicine, which is basically the practice of clinical medicine, in just one year out of the whole duration of 6 years of med school, making the fifth year the first time medical students learn clinical examination. Two months of the fourth year where supposedly scheduled for teaching us that, but they were hardly taken seriously by the students and the majority of the staff, two months that we're getting to understand their wasted value at the moment though. Of course, receiving medical education where we are takes the experience to a whole different dimension. Med students here can confidently state that their learning experience is very different from anyone else's in the whole world. That's one thing we can know for sure about this year. Nevertheless, I'm determined to begin this year with high spirits and see for myself how far things would go.

I've started the year with the Chest Medicine round. The beginning of the round is really the most tiresome part of it when you're still wide eyed making your early acquaintance with the basic principles of a new branch and yet expected to know, understand and practice everything as fast as you can (or can't for that matter). You're still organizing your studying material and figuring out what are the most reliable sources.  And, above all, you're learning how to perform the needed clinical skills correctly and interpret your findings into a preliminary differential diagnosis. So imagine our panic when we knew that the end of the round exam takes place after 2 weeks of its begining (one week from now, that is).

I am thinking it would be a good thing if one could keep track of what goes on this year, why it would be a good thing I have no idea, it's only that I've taken it upon myself to do so that I'm calling it a good idea.

So, what have I learnt (or haven't learnt) so far?

- An annoying feeling I'm getting since this round has begun is that apart from clinical examination skills I'm not learning any new information at all. We keep attending lectures that's main focus is still pathology. I don't know if I'm right, but I expected more focus on the clinical presentation, diagnosis and treatment part.

- This reminds me to mourn physiology, pathology, anatomy, histology... etc basically mourn the first 3 years of med school. It's amazing how most of us have no recollection what so ever of these sweet memories. May be that's why teaching is re-targeting them, but again, I thought it's our responsibility to review these aspects of every topic on our own, be prepared so that teaching this year can have better focus on the clinical aspects.

- Enthusiasm is just as contagious as disappointment. Some teachers are so passionate, so enthusiastically talk and move non-stop for hours to the extent that you suspect hyperactivity of their Thyroid glands. Others are totally convinced that students are lazy, stupid, useless creatures that have to be continuously scorned for whatever they do or don't do right or wrong. They waste endless time preaching without any called-for occasion. As I've said, both are very much contagious. You either want to jump up and start working right now or want to walk out of class so that you won't be put down by their idea of you.

-Doctors actually use the stethoscopes. And they actually hear different sounds that actually have meanings. (who would have guessed)

- I won't even begin to talk about the condition of the patients. It's not that they are ill-treated from the medical staff or the students. It's simply their conditions. The sad miserable mixture of extreme poverty, illness and ignorance. I can't imagine their lives outside the hospital or even inside it, and I can't endure the idea of having anything to do with worsening it one day. If success to us is not a good enough incentive for working hard, try this one.

- We are very lucky that we are in the building that has been on fire some weeks ago. You can still see the ashes and blackened walls in many of the places. This explains the sand piles occupying the ground floor, but definitely doesn't explain why these sand piles are being used as urinals. The entrance of the chest medicine building is where you hold your breath and hope you lose your smell sensation altogether. Well at least we have an entrance, check the main entrance of the Internal Medicine building that's under reconstruction and students and patients climb scaffolds to enter the building. When are they planning on closing the entrance? When an accident takes place of course, but not before that.

- Cats are freely allowed on the chest medicine floor. Huge cats that I saw the nurses greeting in the morning. It's interesting also that the cats at least respect the dress coat, they are all white.

- Aw! And roaches too.


But, as they say, life goes on....

Happy, or Maybe Not

Happiness is a tricky deal. I am coming to believe that no one is really happy at all even if they looked so to every one else. People surrounded by lots of blessings usually stop noticing them and it's as if they itch for trouble. They always make it to finding a thought, a memory, a feeling or anything to stay up all night hurting over it. People don't look for happiness, they feverishly seek disturbances.

A disturbing situation is when you look people who have been extremely unfortunate in life in the eye, and find yourself thinking "Thank God I'm not them!". It kind of gets to your better opinion of yourself, specially when you're supposed to be their care giver. You pity them tremendously but not enough to accept trading places with them. It seems odd, but you simultaneously wonder why you got to have so many graces and they ended up with nothing at all. You're not immune, anything can happen to you at any time too but for some reason it hasn't happened yet. You're suddenly taken over by this awkward fear of finding yourself really in their place. You shake your head in an attempt to cast these disturbing thoughts out of your mind, and the only thing you can do is thank God for the graces you're granted at the moment and pray for them to be consoled and supported by Him through their hardships. 

And then may be blessings are not a good enough reason for happiness. The most brilliant life can make you miserable if it has been forced upon you. But at least you'll have the comfort of knowing that you couldn't help it with your unhappiness. The real agony is when you've made a challenging choice that turns out to be just the thing that would vanquish your peace of mind. So it comes down to this most of the time: Be it your choice or not, there are times when absolute happiness lies in understanding one fact about life; the fact is that there are times  when you have to completely put aside everything you love for the sake of completely giving yourself away to just one thing that you don't like that much but you have to do anyway. Don't indulge in the sweet mourning of your lost happiness, focus as hard as you can to get the task done as fast as possible and you'll feel a lot better when it's over and you know you've done it right even though you didn't like doing it. Stand up to the responsibility of the choices you've made, and maybe you'll find out one day you were only made for doing that one task right, and maybe you'll even come to liking it after all.

Of Forgotten Places

I haven't met any one who is not extremely dramatic, and that of course, includes myself.

Everybody exaggerates the importance of something that has no meaning at all. That's simply because what's important or sentimentally signifcant to somebody may be of no value at all to anyone else on the planet. Surely enough not everything is interpreted the same way by every human being, and our reactions are all the products of our interpretations.

So, you're turning the world upside down over something, driving everybody mad with your constant talking about it while no one seems to get what's blown away your mind this way. And then you realize that the problem all along has been that you were always turning to people who, no matter how close to you they are, they can't always care or feel the joy or the grief that a particular something brings to you.

To Allah, we were meant to turn. To ask for consolation, for understanding. Who would understand better than our Creator? Who would know better how to lighten our burdens? Who would see through every thought we have without even uttering a word to explain it? With Him it's enough to kneel and plead for forgiveness and assistance, or cry joyfully words of gratefulness and thankfulness, and rest to sure that you've been heard and understood without need for further elaborations.

I'm trying to learn the art of strength. The art of ridding myself of waiting on people and hastening to Allah. An overwhelming feeling of weakness that is, and I can't find strength anymore while leaning on humans, most of all while leaning on myself. I am seeking assurance and peace of mind, seeking a reason, seeking an incentive, and they exist only where I most forget to look.

Humans are forgetful. A fact that excuses us for many of our sins, but turns against us when we forget the great power that watches over us. We keep looking in all the wrong places and in our forgetfulness, we forget that we already know where to look.

This time I want to remember. I've found my forgotten treasure.

Of Ridiculousness, Cement Walls & Originality

If there is anything I definitely ever wanted to be, I'd have given anything to be, it would be intelligence. Such a great power which comes in all different variants and forms, most important of which is the variant of being intelligently able to use whatever amount of intelligence you have, the most rarely encountered variant that is.

Now, what I mean here is not the "I'm really brilliant at maths" intelligence. I mean the originality intelligence. The inability to have a commonplace thought, to utter a commonplace word, to undertake a commonplace action. You see, that's a most guaranteed way to die young. With all the ridiculousness generally acknowledged as commonsense taking place around us everywhere, the sort of people I've just mentioned would definitely suffer all sorts of cardiovascular diseases. So, in short, my definition of intelligence would be originality, and my definition of originality would be a short life of a shooting high blood pressure.
But these are only the regular originals, they fade quickly, they fail to adjust.

An intelligent original would know how to adjust to the world and coexist. The world frustrates them but they know how to keep their frustration away from the surface. You would find them extremely quiet or extremely sarcastic. What better ways to coexist with ridiculousness other than laughing it out all through or simply looking the other way? I don't think I know.

Then there are the stupid originals who cross the line. They are very much aware of their own originality, which is not something awful except for the fact that they over do it. They despise people, look down on them and turn eventually into perfect jerks who think they have a divine right to consider others as perfect fools and treat them as mere marionettes.

The interesting part is that all three types have a common tendency that deserves to be marveled at towards crashing their lives into the nearest cement wall . They usually commit an outside the box insanity that blows everything up. All that trying new things and despising the nice old safe ridiculous ways don't always end very well. There is a reason why the world is full of happy commonplace people, and that is that the others don't survive themselves. Just take a look at Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment or Isabel from The portrait of a Lady and you'll get what I mean.

Me and a couple of my friends have been dying lately to meet any of the middle type (since jerks and dead people are everywhere nowadays). We've come to the conviction that they are a rare, almost extinct breed . May be the problem isn't that they don't exist anymore, it's that there isn't any more original thoughts, words or actions. Everything has been thought of before, has been done before, has been said before.

On a second thought though, I don't think I want to be original anymore. Looks like it ends by sudden death, oppressed frustration or being a jerk. With being a jerk the most appealing option on the list, I think I'd rather be contented with being who I am, the simple commonplace girl from med school.
Now, isn't that a relief? I've written complete nonsense and got to be finally contented with myself. One couldn't ask for more.

About Sketching Out Limits for Infinity

A couple of weeks ago I was on the way back home. I am a person who loses her mind with homesickness every time I'm away from home despite my great love for traveling, may be because I haven't been yet to any of the places I really want to go to. I did enjoy my time there more than I expected, but still I was counting down to my coming back to dear home. On the awaited day of my coming back, it happened for personal reasons to coincide with a big disappointment to me. It was that degree of disappointment that makes you reconsider everything you planned for your life, reconsider why you're here, wonder what's the point of your existence at all if you're not going to be what you always thought you would be. I've always known I never really planned anything in my life. Since I can ever remember I had a clear view of how my life would be. It was never a plan, it was the way I literally saw the future, and everything in my life has always moved on its own towards getting closer to that vision. It seemed inevitable, I was being taken by the hand towards it.

On that day I was waking up from a vivid vision I had seen and loved for years. My head was full of dark thoughts of panicking over its sudden disappearance. Brought together with my not sleeping at all the night before, no coffee as it was Ramadan and I couldn't bring myself to break my fasting for traveling and the additional emotional drifting I always have on leaving places I've called home for awhile and going back to places which have always been home.
I wasn't sure if I was awake or sleeping, it was that state between them both wih only one thought in the background of my mind: Where to go now?

The car was going down the chain of mountains descending from the city of Taif which is about 2000 m above sea level. The road is designed so that you spirally go around these mountains all the way down. I was looking outside the car window and falling asleep to my thoughts. I saw beside me infinite series of mountains stretching across the horizon and ending where my eyes couldn't see. The iron side bars of the road were separating us from another infinity extending downwards towards a ground also beyond my vision. All I could see was the endless mountains, endless levels of cars below us descending to the same unseen destination and huge birds flying right next to us in a speed that looked like slow motion compared to the speed of our car.
I was completely surrounded by infinity from all directions, and it completely fitted my state of mind.
I closed my eyes tightly for the rest of the trip down. The scene had an eye opening effect on me.There could have never been a clearer demonstration of infinity and uncertainty to me at such a time. It is the nature of things to be infinite and vague. It's only natural not to be that sure of anything at all. What's been unnatural and delusional is my imagining that I could see my future years ahead and rest to being so sure about it. After a couple of weeks and getting over my first over reaction, that was an extreme absurdity. What am I in the middle of that vastness that I've only seen a tiny glimpse of? What sort of disaster has fallen upon the world if it turned out that I've spent the last few years strolling in the wrong road and that I need to take a turn? 

What I've always been trying to do is sketching out limits to infinity, a good waste of hopes and a garanteed way to always manage to get disappointed.
I see now that I'm in no rush what so ever to have a hint about everything for the rest of my life, God knows how long that's going to be. I can just commit to the moment, and make decisions one step at a time as they come along. I'll dream as much as I wish, I'll always try to pursue my dreams, but I'll always keep in mind that they are the dreams and I'm the dream maker; if one dream goes it can't be the end of everything, as long as I'm still here making another dream.

A Dream within a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream? 


Edgar Allan Poe

"Who was she? What was she, that she should hold herself superior?What view of life, what design upon fate, what conception of happiness, had she that pretended to be larger than these large, these fabulous occasions? If she wouldn't do such a thing as that then she must do great things, she must do something greater."

The portrait of a Lady.

Slaughterhouse Five

He has fought during the second world war and witnessed the bombing of the city of Dresden, a German city completely destroyed near the end of the war. Ever since he came back home from the war and he's been wanting to write a book about it. After endless trials, he eventually tells his story through Billy Pilgrim, an Optometrist whom he had met during the war and had a picular story about him: Billy claimed he had been kidnapped by Aliens and that he could spontaneously travel through time into different phases of his life.


Billy Pilgrim, after being kidnapped by Tralfamadorians:
-''How—how did I get here?''
-''It would take another Earthling to explain it to you. Earthlings are the great explainers, explaining why this event is structured as it is, telling how other events may be achieved or avoided. I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of Rocky Mountains. All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber.''
-''Why me? ''
-"That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?''
-''Yes.''
Billy in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three ladybugs embedded in it.
-''Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why."

Billy is kept in a zoo on Tralfamadore. He learns that they see four dimensions, the fourth being time. They don't just see the present, they can simultaneously see the past and the future, all like a series at the same time. They know Billy has fought during the second world war.
-"But you do have a peaceful planet here.''
-''Today we do. On other days we have wars as horrible as any you've ever seen or read about. There isn't anything we can do about them, so we simply don't look at them. We ignore them. We spend eternity looking at pleasant moments—like today at the zoo. Isn't this a nice moment?''
-''Yes.''
-''That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones.''

Billy was watching a movie about the war, during watching he kept time traveling through it so that he eventually ended up seeing the film backwards, this is what he's seen.
"American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.
The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.
When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.
The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed. "

إنه العيد

It's Eid! The annual living proof that happiness can be contagious.

There is something about it that makes you truly happy. Although there is no particularly delightful or extraordinary event that is done during it and although you may have your reasons to be in the blues, you can't deny the thrilling effect it has.

The feverish cleaning campaigns the day before Eid while hearing the traditional songs you hear every year out loud from every TV in your street including yours. Putting on your new pajamas (a habit I haven't given up since childhood). Waking up very early -that's if you've slept in the first place- to go to the prayer. Hearing Al-takbeerat repeated by everyone at the same time producing that loud firm "Allah akbar" as if said by one man, this feeling of strength and power it gives! The usual silly competitions held for the kids after the prayer and before you know they're all running joyfully around the street carrying colorful balloons and toys that they've just won. The extremely high caloric breakfast held after the prayer and forced to eat everywhere you go in Eid. The family gatherings. Seeing people you mostly only see in Eid. The quiet peaceful fresh atmosphere on the streets -if you stay away from main streets and parks, that is- .

Nothing fancy, but you can sense that everybody has taken some group decision to enjoy the day no matter what sort of troubles awaits them after it, and you can't help but getting dragged into it yourself, and before you know those little simple traditions done every year bring so much joy to your heart. Happy enthusiastic people are infectious, and you'll get to be surrounded by them all day.

I know there are people who this particular atmosphere of mass happiness gets on their nerves. Sometimes I'm one of them too, but I know that I'm lucky to have been granted a chance of living long enough to feel it all again this year, lucky for having the luxury of complaining about being surrounded by too many happy people and lucky for being able to feel the joy of it all.

The Evil World Theory

It happens that sometimes you're mad at the world. Something happens that wakes you up from your happy little care-free life and throws you back to the merciless reality. Your mind tries to defend you so it struggles to push you into a meaningless circle of frustration and anger. "It's not your fault, it's the bad world's", it keeps telling you. It even refuses others' attempts to sooth it, to console it, or attempts to share your pain, because these caring people make the world a less cruel despicable place and your mind won't have it! It wants to feel anger at the world at its full force. It needs to prove to itself that the world really is as cruel and despicable as it feels it is, really is worth every seed of hatred your mind is cultivating and nourishing, and these people are standing in its way. They are a solid proof the world isn't that bad. How you would hate them for it!

Only your faith can hold solid grounds in front of your angry mind. The faith that this world is a creation of Allah in which we are all meant to dwell together and ordered to build for reasons known only to Allah. That whatever happens in Allah's world happens for a good reason. That every little event contributes to reaching the reason for this world's existence, which is the only reason you exist in the first place. These little, yet purposeful, events may pain you. May be you're meant to feel the pain at this moment so that you'd wake up and finally do the thing you were brought here to do. Or may be your pain will wake someone else up. May be the whole point of your being put in this world is waking this someone up so that by just being in pain you've done a great service to the world.

It might seem like no sense to you, but the key to it all is faith. Do you have faith? It's only if you do that what I'm saying can make any sense.

So, moving on.

Verb "To Be"

This is how it goes when you complain about any of the following: appearances, family, origins.

Don't let it get to you!
You shouldn't let your appearance define who you are.
You shouldn't let who your family define who you are.
You shouldn't allow where you come from define who you are.

These are things sort of considered "out of your hand". You're born with these facts about yourself, you don't get to change them, they never change.

Then there are the things you choose -or you don't- like your studies, your career, what you do for a living. But again, they tell you when you complain about them that you shouldn't let them define who you are either.

What defines who I am?

I'd have thought that what I choose is what defines me. But what if you don't choose the right things that are supposed to define you? What if you don't choose right? Then the things you choose won't define you in this case. May be in this case your definition would be: " A person who doesn't choose right."

I don't really know what defines me.

Is it my thoughts? My beliefs? My opinions? What's their worth if there is nothing that I can do that would fully express them? What's their worth if they only stay in my head or stay on a piece of paper? They're supposed to show in your actions somehow. But in what direction exactly? If it is not in your work, then where?

Is it the people you choose to be with?

Is it what the majority of people agree that you are?

Is it all of these things when put together?

What defines me?
Who am I?

أنا و العربية

كنت ناوية أكتب عن كل الحاجات اللي و أنا صغيرة كنت ناوية أكونها لما أكبر - و دي كانت حاجات كتير و معظمها "ظريف" فعلاً. - و بدأت اكتب و كالمعتاد كتبت بالإنجليزية ( أيوة هي اسمها انجليزية بالعربي!) و بعدين خطر في بالي حاجتين: أولاً انا مكنتش بفكر في كل الحاجات دي وقتها بالاإنجليزية أصلاً، و ثانياً ازاي الواحد يتكلم عن "من كان يريد أن يكون" من غير ما يبقي عارف "من يكون"؟

مسحت الكلام اللي كتبته و رجعت فكلامي في الموضوع اللي كنت حتكلم فيه من الأساس، و قررت أني أكتب عن: أنا ليه بكتب بالإنجليزية مع إني مصرية و لغتي هي العربية؟

ممكن أقول أسباب كتيرمن نوعية "أصل إحنا معندناش انتماء و عندنا فقدان للهوية" بس معتقدش إني عندي فقدان هوية أو قلة إنتماء فبالتالي معتقدش إن دة السبب.. برضه مش مسألة اني مبعرفش عربي كويس،( كانت قايمة في دماغي أكتب بالفصحى دلوقتي بس حسيت إن كدة حيبقي كتير و قلت خليها بعدين) بس برضه مش دة السبب لاني أول ما بدأت أقرأ أصلاً (قصدي قراءة خارج مناهج الدراسة) كنت بقرأ بالعربيةالفصحي  و كتبت كتير جداً بالفصحى وقتها حتى كتبت قصص بالفصحي! (كانت قصص هي كمان "ظريفة" جداً، و كما هوواضح أنا كنت طفلة "ظريفة") . ا

ايه مشكلتي طيب؟

يمكن انا حاسة إن العربي لغة العوام أو لغة بلدي أو بيئة أو حاسة إن الكتابة بالانجليزية بتخلي اللي بكتبه مختلف عن اللي الناس التانية بتكتبه؟ اعتقد أن دة السبب بالنسبة لناس كير جداً فبالتالي بيكتبوا بأي لغة تانية يجيدوها (أو حتى لو لا يجيدوها) ، و اللي مش لاقي لغة تانية يجيدها بيكتب فرانكو اراب و اهو يبقي عمل اي حاجة غير انه يضطر يستخدم الحروف العربية "البلدي" او خلينا نقول "اللي شكلها مش لطيف ذي شكل الكتابة الفارنكو اراب".ا

اول ما عملت اكونت علي الفايس بوك كانت اول سنة الاحظ اد ايه الفرانكو اراب انتشر و كانت الفكرة "مقززة" جدا بالنسبة لي وقتها، و قعدت اقول للناس كلها:  خلاص مش قادرين نطيق فكرة إننا عرب لدرجة إننا حنكتب العربي بلغة تانية؟ للدرجة دي بنعبر عن اد ايه كان نفسنا نكون بنتكلم لغة تانية غير العربي و يا ريت لو تكون الانجليزية عشان نبقي شبه الناس اللي احنا بنشوفهم وحنموت عليهم في التليفزيون؟

اصريت في الاول إني مش حستخدمه و فضلت أكتب الستاتيس و التعليقات في الجروبس و الرسايل و كل حاجة بالعربي، و بعدين لقيت نفسي الوحيدة في كل صحابي اللي بتعمل كدة و لقيت اني كل ما افتح الموضوع قدام حد يقولي ان الحكاية مش مستاهلة و اني مكبرةالموضوع..و بعدين ألفته و اتعودت عليه من كتر استخدامي للفيس بوك و تدريجيا بدأت استخدمه أنا كمان..ا

امممم.. معتقدش إن السبب بالنسبة لي أي واحد من دول

بالنسبة لي و بالنسبة لناس كتير جدا اعتقد إن المسألة مسألة ثقافة، ايه هي لغة الثقافة و لغة المعلمومات اللي عمالة تدخل دماغك طول الوقت؟ الإنجليزية.. بالتالي و قت ما مخك ييجي يعبر عن نفسه حيعبر بنفس اللغة اللي دخلتله المعلومات بيها.. طبيعي جدا

مدرسة و كتب و كلية و تليفزيون و اغاني كله بالإنجليزية،كل دة "داخل" .. طبيعي جدا إن كل اللي "طالع" يبقي بالإنجليزية برضه

يبقي فين المشكلة؟ المشكلة هي إيه اللي دخل كل دة بلغة غير العربي من الأساس؟

خد المدرسة مثلاً ، أنا كنت في مدرسة لغات درسنا فيها كل حاجة تقريبا بالإنجليزية، و إن كنت محظوظة نوعاً إن مدرستي كانت المدرسة اللغات الوحيدة اللي بتدرس القرآن و بتخصص له حصص كل اسبوع (بغض النظر عن مدي اهتمام المدرسة او المدرسين او الطلبة بالحصة انما كانت موجودة) فبالتالي محدش جرؤ في المدرسة علي انه يقول لنا إن العربي "عيب" أو "بيئة" و مكانتش سياسة المدرسة عموماً إننا نستبدل العربي في كلامنا بالإنجليزية .. غير مدارس تانية لغات اصرت علي تعليم الطلبة ان الالفاظ العربي بلدي و ان استخدامها يدل علي تعليم متدني.. كنت واقفة مرة في الكلية و مش عارفة ايه اللي جاب سيرة طوابير المدرسة. واحدة صحبتي قالتلي: ايه دة؟ انتو كنتو بتقولوا "طابور"؟ قلتها اه، قالتلي ناقص تقولي كنتوا بتقولوا "حصة"، قلت لها اه كنا بنقول حصة! مالهم طابور و حصة يعني؟! طبعاً قالت كلام لا نهاية له عن أد ايه احنا كنا مدرسة بيئة و انا قلت كلام لا نهاية له عن اننا معروف مستوي مدرستنا و مستوي الناس اللي فيها كويس و ان الفرق اننا عندنا اعتزاز باصلنا و مبنتكسفش نتكلم عربي .. إلي آخر كل الكلام المتوقع يتقال.  دة غير طبعاً المدارس الاجنبية التابعة لنظم تعليم دولي أو سفارات أجنبية مبيتعلموش فيها عربي من الأساس إلا كلمتين فقط دة لو اتعلموهم،. و فيهم أولياء أمور شايفين إن دة الصح و إن العربي لا داعي لتدريسة أصلاً لانه -زي ما قالتلي واحدة من الأمهات كانت معايا في دروس الفرنسية- "لغة غير مستخدمة و ملهاش لازمة أصلاً".ا

حتى الكتب، قلة قليلة من الكتب العربية الموجودة حاليا (بقول حاليا مش زمان)تستحق القراءة. الروايات مواضيها محدودة جداً ، فلو ذوقك مش متناسب مع الموجود يبقي مفيش داعي تقرأ أصلاً أو حتلاقي نفسك بتقرأ بالإنجليزية اللي حتلاقي فيها تعدد و تنوع بلا حدود لفي المواضيع و الأفكار و حتى حتلاقي فيها ترجمات متقنة جدا عن كل اللغات التانية اللي انت لا تجيدها، ورحم الله أمثال جمال الدين الأفغاني اللي كانوا مهتمين بترجمة الكتب الأجنبية للعربية ترجمة متقنة، دلوقتي الترجمات للعربية رديئة و غير مقروءة أصلاً كأنها مترجمة علي جوجل

الأغاني و الأفلام الحديثة أغلبها هابط و تافه و غير قابل للاستخدام البشري اساساو تخجل من انك تقول "هو دة الفن العربي".. و برضه حتلاقي علي الناحية التانية كل انواع و مواضيع الفن تختار منها اللي انت عايزة و اللي يتناسب مع ذوقك و فكرك و تربيتك، طبيعي جدا انك تختار تروح الناحية التانية

طيبعي جدا ان ادام كل الي داخل عقلك اجنبي، يطلع منه كل حاجة برضه بنفس اللغة و الفكر اللي دخل بيها و اللي متعلمش و أَلَف غيرها أصلا

مش قصدي التعميم اطلاقاً، عارفة كويس جداً إن علي مستوي الأدب و الفن و الترجمة في حاجات كويسة جدا بالعربية، أنا بتكلم علي إنها قليلة و غير متاحة و مفيش تنوع في مواضيها و الأهم بقي، إنها لا يتم الترويج لها علي الإطلاق عشان تصل للناس و يعرفوا بوجودها من الأساس.ا

الحل؟ مش الحل إننا نرضي بالموجود عندنا و نعتبر إن كدة يبقي احنا عندنا انتماء،لأن أصلاً الموجود حاليا دة عبارة عن تعريب فاشل و سطحي للثقافات الأجنبية. الحل إن الثقافة العربية تبدأ تعلي لحد ما تقدر تحل محل الثقافات الأجنبية. يبقي في مادة محترمة و متنوعة و راقية تتقدم للناس و يبدأ الترويج لها زي ما تم الترويج للثقافات الأجنبية هنا و تشجيع الناس إنهم يختاروها و يرفضوا الهابط منها.  و وقتها حيبقي الناس نفسها هي اللي حتقبل علي استخدام العربية من غير ما حد يقول لها "نتكلم عربي عشان الانتماء"، حيبقو بيتكلموا عربي لأن هو دة اللي اتعلموه و اتربوا عليه فعلا

دة موضوع كبير و لا أدّعي اني أعرف إزاي يتم إنما عارفة أنه ممكن جداً يتم لو أصبح دة اتجاه الدولة نفسها. سقوط ثقافة الدولة كان جزء من السقوط اللي الدولة كلها بتعاني منه في كل حاجة.  الترويج لثقافة خاصة بينا احنا و تعبر عنا فعلاً.ووجود عِلم بيُنتج من عندنا احنا مش بيترجم او يتنقل معتمد علي تخطيط و سياسة الدولة في التعليم و تشجيعها للناس علي كدة.  لو الدولة مبقاش دة اتجاها اصلا اعتقد أن التغيير حيبقي صعب جدا . ا

علي فكرة حرف الألِف في نهاية كل جملة و كتابة كلمات انجليزية بالعربية هنا سببه ان البراوزر بيقلب ترتيب كل الجُمل لما باستخدم علامات ترقيم او حروف إنجليزية، مش عارفة دة لأني مش عارفة أضبطه و لا لأنه غير مُعَد للكتابة عليه بالعربية، أو لأنه مُعد أنه يزهق أي حد يحاول يكتب بالعربية.ا

عموماً خلاصة القول بالنسبة لي انا، انا بحب أقول لنفسي في آخر اليوم قبل ما انام اني بنفذ ما أؤمن به (أو بحاول حتى). و اللي كتبته مش معناه اني حبطل اكتب بأي لغة تانية. إنما معناه إني حافضل حاطة في دماغي إني لو عايزة أشوف العرب في يوم من الأيام عندهم ثقافة قادرين علي استخدامها، يبقي لازم ابدأ بنفسي 

ازاي؟ مش عارفة بالضبط.. بس ححاول

Singing Along

This is probably about nothing at all.
Well, thinking again, this is definitely about nothing at all.


I can't write songs. Not that I've actually tried and failed, but every time I think of the possibility of writing songs something screams in my head: YOU CAN'T! YOU CAN'T! YOU CAN'T! I needen't be hard on myself for it, everybody has a something that they can't do. But I'd have loved so much to write songs. Anyway, if I could write songs, they'd be Coldplay's.


Balance is important in life. They always say that and I think it's true. Don't get overtly enthusiastic over something and ignore other aspects of your life for it.  Balance. Stay balanced. Balance is important.
But don't you sometimes feel like you can't call yourself truly alive until you've experienced the feeling of losing your mind with passion and enthusiasm over an idea, giving it your day and night and every corner of space in your mind until you've achieved it against people's "assurances" that you won't. No? At least once in your life? You think this may cause so much damage to your life. May be it will, but it's worth it. Or so I think.



Sometimes phrases stick to your head. You hear them in a critical time, or from a special person, or they just hit a nerve and they kind of stay with you.
Can't remember the exact words though.
On BBC, few days after the 28th of Jan, there was that woman, she was saying with a smile and great adoration, how it's always wonderful to witness a revolution and see people coming together to stand in the face of tyranny. She said, of course there is the mess that comes with the after math, but the moment itself is very much worth witnessing.
I remember thinking that she is very right and envying her for affording to say that with a smile, while I can't say that without being eaten up with worry.
On CNN, the day following Mubarak's stepping down, there was another woman. The host was asking her if she thought the decision of some activists to stay in Tahrir square until all what has been called for is fulfilled. She said, who am I to judge? The millions of people in this square have formed a united organic entity capable of taking decisions and managing events in a way that was thought impossible. I think whatever they decide to do is the right thing.
Of course they tried to stay, of course they couldn't as they were driven out. I'll never forget this woman's words.


I have never watched "Pirates of the Caribbean" before . My sister was watching part 1 the other day. I, being the depressive dark person that I am, wanted to watch "Enemy at the gates". And of course being the kind hearted person that I am, we watched "pirates of the Caribbean". Near the end of the movie, Turner is kidnapped to be killed by the pirates while Sparrow and Elizabeth are rescued by the royal navy or something. Elizabeth convinces Norrington to return with the fleet to save Turner. Then you see how tens of officers die in the process of rescuing him which is successfully accomplished. Note that they wouldn't have died if they didn't return to rescue Turner. But at the end of the movie we are all glad Turner is rescued and no one even remebers the officers.
I don't believe people when they tell me they think all lives are equal. Lives are important only when we choose to care, or when we're induced to care. Otherwise....


I think I'll just go eat something now. 

About Transforming into Devils

It's Ramadan.
Every year I start the month by strictly deciding not to change my sleep pattern. Every year I dramatically change it!
So this explains why when today's trial was on I was deeply asleep and was planning to stay that way.
I've watched part of the earlier session and I expected this one would be pretty much the same so I didn't feel like waking up to watch at all. Still, I felt like it was my duty to see this trial , so I opened my eyes, took one look at all of them. One in bed and doesn't seem to mind all the folks directly staring at him or the millions of folks indirectly staring at him through TV, and the other two mockingly eying the spectators with Al- Qur'an in their hands. Then I was straight back to bed.

Dreams, dreams, dreams.

The TV is very loud, I can hear all the screaming angry voices in my sleep. They're all joining in the dream. Thoughts and impressions from the quick glimpse I had, they're also joining in.

He was a military aviator (or is it a fighter pilot? or is it both? I don't know). He fought the war. On that day he got on that plane knowing he might never come back and yet he did it. He knew he could die. He came back as a war hero, receiving the endless respect and admiration of his people.
How could he later betray these people? How did he turn into a traitor and a monstrously selfish dictator who crashed an entire country under his feet? Crashed Egypt under his feet. The same country he fought to free.
How can you be ready to give your life away to protect something, and then you yourself carry out to the heart the mission of mercilessly destroying it?
How do people change that much? How do they turn into other people?
I can't understand.

Is it true that people only go to war out of pure patriotism and love for their country or beliefs? I have no idea. I've never witnessed a war or been to a war (thankfully), but I can't understand why would you risk your own life, or risk living with a severe disability, unless you know that if you die or get disabled, you won't feel anger or remorse, you need to be sure that you'll feel satisfied and relived. Yes, relieved. There is no other way to accept death or disability unless you're so committed to your beliefs that nothing would relief you other than fulfilling them even if the price was your very own life.
How could you rise to such spirits then fall to the extreme opposite?
I can't understand.

People don't always go to war for that, I know, though I can't understand how.

We all know that there was nothing left to millions to live on except cracks of bread (if they could find them). In Ramadan, it was crystal clear with all the ads. urging people to donate money for all sorts of charity that this country was being run by the people. The people who can took over to save as much as they can of the people who can't from starving to death. They even took over for health, education and sports projects. Few years ago, Gamal Mubarak (the man carrying Al-Qu'ran today) wanted to start a governmental project to collect the charity money from the people (because the government knows better how to distribute it). Why would all of this charity money be wasted on the starving ragged masses? They wanted to take that away too.
I don't understand how can people be so monstrous, so merciless, and be all of this to their own people. Call me cheesy, naive or whatever but I just can't understand.

What we're witnessing must be a wake up call to us all.

Some of us can't imagine how being a merciless devil can be done, and at the same time some of us do it without the slightest difficulty. Some of us transform between the two types.
No grantees for who the person you'll wake up to be tomorrow, is there?
How do I know I won't transform?

Ya Allah, you're my only hope that I won't.

Babel Tower!

Currently in KSA, the place where I was born and where I've lived for so long.


I mostly hated having to spend the summer in KSA. Apart from the advantage of getting to visit Mecca, I always had to spend the vacation in a tightly reserved and closed community where I didn't have any friends. Days were always spent between shopping and wandering about at home reading or watching TV.
I've observed as a foreigner and an outsider the position of women in the society and as a feminist (yes I'm a feminist, haven't I  mentioned it?) I disliked the place even more. I've seen women as shadows obliged to follow men and always dependent on them, and always had the impression that men took women for granted out of consciousness of their dependence.

This year I am here after a long break of the summer visits. Older and finally with a defined field of studying (which is the same field of my parents), I found a better chance than what was usually available to me for getting a closer look at this society.
My way in was accompanying my father to work. Through being with him I got a glimpse of the male society, and on my own I was easily admitted to the female society, both societies strictly separated and yet coexisting with much success, a thing I've always thought not possible.

I've met the housewives Saudi women before and I've thought it all there is to the female society. Spending time in the female ER, I got to see how these women transform into able, active characters in their work environment. They seemed to be functioning and focusing with better liberty and comfort away from men.
I also got to meet the female medical staff from other different Arab and non-Arab nationalities who Egyptian women would consider as having less liberty or less chances of education. The most amazing of all was the Sudanese staff. Most of the female surgeons were Sudanese. I got to make friends with one of them and she was exactly the sort of girls I always wanted to be. Confident and tender with her patients, calm and always knowing exactly what to do, determined to move forwards with her career. I learned from her that many Sudanese women choose surgery and that it was no wonder to them. Strangely enough, this is not the case in our more opened Egyptian society.
Based on what I've seen, both male doctors and female patients had great respects and trust in the female surgeons. No one seemed to question their abilities just because they are women.

Babel Tower! Another striking point was everyone's ability to communicate successfully with other staff members despite the difference in their nationalities, native languages and backgrounds. All other nationalities seemed to accept that they've entered a society that has its own rules that are to be respected whether the rules are liked or not. I found it to be considered a point for the Saudi society to be able to accept and cope with such a diversity with all the further complexity and the additional internal social division that it brings.

The clothes! In here I understood it usually works this way: The ladies cover from head to toe while servants don't usually cover their faces, may be because they are usually non-Saudis. Despite being all covered up they take great care of the elegance of their robes, bags and shoes each doing her best according to her economic state. The obligation to cover up didn't seem to offend them in any way, on the contrary according to their social rules it seemed to indicate their being of an upper social state.
Personally, like many other non-Saudi women here, I don't cover my face. Yet it didn't evoke any sort of harassment or even any unpleasant comment from either men or women. Some might give you a look of disapproval, but it doesn't progress further than the look.

It's true that many of my first impressions were correct, for instance the banning of women from driving creates a great dependence issue. Some women had to skip work on many days because they didn't have anyone available to drive them. Of course the hospital has its own buses in service, but not all of the women use the buses.

What I've learnt is that there is no such thing as an ideal society pattern that has to be applied all over the world. I can't generalize what I've seen and I didn't see much, but I understand now that what can't work for my society isn't necessarily impossible to apply for other societies. This society like any other society definitely has it's problems and definitely has its many flaws. It's true that the position of women regarding the value placed on their education is not where it is thought best to be. But then again, I generally accept and understand now that what's considered "best" or as "improvement" is not the same everywhere. Changes are brought about only when the current conditions are no longer considered satisfactory for those living them and not for those judging from the outside, and it's up to those living them only to take action towards changing  them.

Probably it would be a long while before I'd be able to to visit KSA again, and I'm glad I'll be leaving this time inshaa Allah with better impressions and memories and more acquaintances than every time :)





 

First post: Making ourselves at home!

Personally, if I'm going to read something, I like knowing a little about the person who wrote it. So for you out there who feel the same, there we go.

I answer "a med student" when people ask me who I am. That's true, but fortunately - or unfortunately, I can't really tell up till now-  studying medicine is not my only focus. I confess to being easily distracted from medicine by events happening around me or weird thoughts or impulses that occur to me. I have a troublesome tendency to always try to understand and analyze them. But don't get the wrong idea here, I cherish medicine very much for being on its own a very special way of experiencing life and seeing it from where the majority of people don't get to.

I am completely in love with books! Seriously! It's like an obsession to me! Specially novels from all sorts of cultures and from different times. I consider it a way of browsing through lives that I can never live, may be even living and "feeling" them through their writers.

My wish is to live up to being the person I think I can be, the person I'm working on being. To see the world one day, to check for myself if things are really like I read about them.

I've been blogging on Facebook  for a couple of years and people over there said they liked it, and for reasons unknown to me, I'm moving to here.

Getting what this blog's about? Exactly! Life, books and medicine! They all overlap together, and they all contribute everyday to the person I become the next day.

Feeling at home? Hopefully..