2008 August | Chocolate Mints In a Jar

Ramadan Kareem

I love Ramadan.

Ya rab yekoon a7la Ramadan yet.

Kol sana wento tayebeen.

On a side note, I really need to buy a fanoos for baby Lulu.

Earthquake?

I think we just got hit by an earthquake or I’ve gone crazy.

Noor Mania

I absolutely loved this post on Noor Mania.

I watched a couple of episodes when I was back in Egypt, when I travelled back to Kuwait and tried watching at home my husband put his foot down and said “No”. I have to tell you that he rarely ever says “no” and usually just fools me into doing what he wants me to. And no it wasn’t because Mohanad is cute or anything, he just couldn’t stand the Syrian voice overs and actually hates romantic mushy wushiness. I did watch a couple of the re-runs that are played earlier in the day but got bored quickly. What I loved most about the show was the mansion, its perfect location overlooking the Bosphoros was just magical to me. Although there was one episode where they show Nour hiding in their bathroom from Mohanad and they had this neon yellow towell hanging. That was what broke it for me. Who buys neon yellow towels?!?! Maybe in an ultra modern bathroom yes, but in a white marble one NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. How can rich people with that kind of moolah not realize that towels should match your bathroom. Terribly annoying! I guess I mainly watched in Egypt because I loved watching with my sister and gossiping and making fun of everything. It’s not so much fun watching on my own. Oh well, I guess I’ll just wait till the next season of Ugly Betty to watch something more entertaining.

Values

Another day of happy blog hopping got me to Colorless Turtle’s post on Principles of Success- Becoming a Person of Integrity on values. So I thought hell, that’s easy I have lots of values and principles in life, not to mention millions of opinions but that’s just another post. Being the ever so annoying person that I am I wanted to make sure what I thought of as “values” were really values. My favorite definition comes from wordnet.

beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an emotional investment (either for or against something); “he has very conservatives values”

I have emotionaly invested in many ideas and beleifs but I guess these are my top 5.

Faith, faith that Allah is great. That is a great big one and it affects lots of my other values but I think that faith sums it up nicely.
Acceptance, acceptance of myself, others and things that come. I wasn’t always an accepting person but I think with age it becomes easier to accept things.
Hope. Without hope the world would be a dark dreary place. Hope that things will get better.
Fairness towards others and myself. If we are not fair then we can never be right.
Care, because if we care about someone or something we can do all of the above. We will have faith that things will turn out better. Acceptance becomes easier because we care about it. We will work for a better future and create hope. And we will do our best to be fair.

I think they are all interrelated and that one can not exist wihtout the others.

I am repeatedly amazed …

by my daughter. She is six months and has been playing with a peice of silver gift wrapping paper for the last hour. She has examined it, scrunched it, licked it, tried to eat it and watched it reflect light. She has folded it, crumpled it, even smiled at it and sort of sang to it. Not only is she entertained but she appears to be interested in something I was going to throw away. Everything must seem so new and interesting when one is that young. SubhanAllah.

Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty

In an attempt to help change the world, this blog is participating in Blog Action Day 2008. This year the theme is poverty. Poverty together with ignorance, war and disease are all intertwined. Eliminating one of them will help with the others. Blogging about poverty in itself might not change thing, but blogging raises awareness and can harness the collective power of the internet community.

Blog Action Day is about changing the conversation for one day to an issue of global importance. It is bloggers, podcasters and videocasters around the world collectively posting on the same issue at the same time, to trigger a global discussion and to bring to bear the diverse opinions and ideas of thousands of different people.

Ask yourself what can I do? Can you give money to charity? Can you volunteer some time? Do you have a great idea which can help? I had blogged previously on the Girl Effect. This is a great example of helping. By helping one girl you can change a whole family’s life. Maybe your take on poverty is by helping with eliminating ignorance, then do that. The whole idea is to change the conversation and by that eventually causing change.

Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day

And unfortunately Egypt is hard hit by that number. I will try to do another post before October 15th on this subject.

If I had a million dollars …

Buy a house on the beach, not a summer house, an all year house. With big balconies and verandas. With windows that let the sun and summer breeze in. I’d plant a little garden with tomatoes, apples and oranges. I’d also want a tree house and a swing.
Beach House Balcony
I would buy my mom a BMW X5, she would look cool in one and despite for serious no nonsence exterior she’s very energetic and fun loving.
BMW X5
I’d start a women training center, teach them all kinds of important life skills like weaving, sewing, cooking and child rearing.

I don’t think the money will be enough but who cares! It’s my blog and I can imagine if I want to.

Meen ele 7ara2 el 2obba?

Fire at Magless El Shura

Seriously I want to see your comments down there.
What do you think happened and why?

Al Badeel
Arabist

What would we do without the internet?

Salam ya balady – Rage3leek mafihash kalam

we koli sho2 we a7lam.
This is exactly how I feel. Yes I know Egypt is a mess but if we are not going to fix it then who is? If we have given up then who will help this phoenix rise up from its ashes?
The song is amazing, and this specific YouTube version is of Alex, which makes it even meaningful to me.