Out loud now, try saying these quickly;

A bitter biting bittern
Bit a better brother bittern,
And the bitter better bittern
Bit the bitter biter back.
And the bitter bittern, bitten,
By the better bitten bittern,
Said: “I’m a bitter biter bit, alack!”

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
He would chuck, he would, as much as he could,
and chuck as much wood as a woodchuck would
if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

And in Arabic

• بطتنا بطّت بطن بطتتكم بطتين وبطة يا هل ترى بتقدر بطتكم تبط بطن بطتنا بطتين وبطة
• عنزتنا الحلطة الملطة القرعة القرطة جابت ستة حلط ملط قرع قرط اجا الذيب الاحلط الاملط الاقرع الاقرط اكل الست الحلت الملط القرع القرط

Al Ahram printed this article today, on the Egyptian Hospital in Bagram, Afghanistan.  It is a small millitary hospital in Bagram which treats Afghan patients for free, providing artificial limbs and performing opthalmology operations.  Led by Ahmed Ashry, the hospital has grown from seeing 100 patients a day to seeing and treating whoever walks in.  This is a beautiful story of what Egyptians can actually do.  The article was first reported by Air Force Senior Airman George Cloutier for the American Forces Press Service in the begining of October.  Why did it take our media over a month to report something so special and inspiring?  And why isn’t our millitary doing the same thing in Egypt?  With all due respect to the Afghans, Egyptian patients need just as much help and deserve it from the government they pay taxes too.

I wish we could see more hospitals like this one and more people like the colonel who are willing to go the extra mile for people who need it.

Photo by FotoRita

No offense to the veggies either.  I had the most disturbing conversation with my friend.  She was telling me that our third friend had just gone back to work after her three months maternity leave ended and was finding work really hard and quite stressful to be back.  Personally I think she’s a hero and imagine how heartbreaking it must be to leave your three month old to go back to work.  The disturbing part was what my friend said her exact words were “Think about it, you’re a mother, a house wife, and your husband is 70% not home you might turn crazy in a while,in this case you don’t have anything to improve/develop thinking and knowledge in life.”

I am a little crazy, I am a mother, I am a housewife (well not the best but I am OK) but I get to improve and develop my knowledge each and every day.  I resent the implication that if a woman does not go out and work that makes her less of a woman.  At the same time I also hate the implication that a mother who chooses to go back to work makes her less of a mother.  The stay at home mom vs the working mom is an age old argument and each side thinks that their position is better than the other.

Everyone lives a different life, everyone is entitled to their choices and those choices should be respected.  I probably took the discussion to personally, but what in life isn’t personal.  Before you blurt out something judgmental think for a moment, if you were in that persons shoes what would you do, why do you think that person made that choice?  Sometimes we don’t always have the luxury of doing what makes us happiest or the best or optimum solution but that does not make us bad people.

Walk a mile in my shoes and your feet will hurt.

I saw this and actually thought that we had crossed the bounds of technology and did the impossible of finding a way to control kids.  I love the “Grow up” button, although I might be tempted to use it on childish adults not kids.

No not me, but it’s the title of Galal Amin’s book. A beautiful autobiography written introspectively and slowly. It is the product of many years of thinking, reading and writing. Even the selection of the cover photo is amazingly accurate. A family portrait with his father in the center, his mother absent and his brothers and sisters sitting around his father subtly tells how much this family has influenced the writer’s life. The mother’s absence in the photograph show how women were not included in this kind of thing too. Their serious looking faces portray the seriousness of the family and of taking a family picture which we now do all the time. We snap using our digital cameras, our phones and our web cams. So much has changed in this author’s lifetime and only by reading or hearing stories like his we can begin to appreciate the changes that have happened in Egypt and the world in the last seven decades or so.

I have always enjoyed Amin’s work, his TV interviews and his articles.  He always appears to have given his ideas lots of deep thought and reflection.  His arguments are solid and usually well laid so it is easy to follow and see his point of view.

Born in January of 1935, his father had wanted his mother to have an abortion because they already had 7 children, she refused and that is how he came to be.  The book is a lovely piece of reading, it is like being told stories by a great uncle about past years.  It is broken down in chapters where you can read each one on its own without skipping a beat.  From the monarchy to the revolution (I still think it should be called something else, it was not a real revolution), he has an interesting opinion at least worth knowing.  There were many things in the book that made me think,  and since it is way too long for me to review it as it is I will just point them out.

• The amount of classical literature which he had read at a young boy is astounding.  It must have helped shaped his future ideas, character and beliefs.  I would also assume that it helped in his ability to analyze and come to a conclusion on his own.
• One of the interesting points was on the Arab Unity.  How Syria, Lebanon and Iraq were very for this idea ( this was of course in the early fifties, post revolution).  How countries like Kuwait and the Emirates were never interested in it.
• Another valid point, although slightly conspiracy theorist is the question of whether or not the United States was involved or at least blessed the revolution.  Amin seems to think so, he also thinks that the Sadat was an American puppet.  His argument is convincing although I believe that these things need proof for one to be able to confirm it.  He was also against Camp David and stopping the war early.  This I totally agree with, I have read other accounts of what happened and think that Sadat meant to stop the war when he did, either because he was told to do so by the Americans or he had already decided before hand that this was what he wanted to do.
• In retrospect the author compares between all rulers of Egypt after the revolution.  Naguib was loved and respected, the people were shocked to see him go.  Abdelnasser ruled with an iron fist, did some good things, did lots of bad things, killed democracy, people’s spirit and did not offer Egypt anything better than the king did.  Sadat was unqulaified for the job, appeared to be democratic but turned out to be just as bad and started the fall of the Egyptian Economy.  As for our current leader, he’s not better than either, he is faithfully doing what the Sadat and Abdelnasser did only in a less obvious manner.
• I also loved the chapter on his life in Kuwait and how little has changed from the seventies to today because it was so true and hit a raw nerve.  But perhaps I will do another long post on that later.
• He recounts how the world and society has changed in the last 50 years and has become more consuming and interested in the material posessions in life and how this in turn has affected people’s expectations from life.  Money is never enough, a husband is never good enough because he can not provide enough, TV and ads bombard people constantly of how life should be, how you should own a villa, drive a car and all that has made people dissapointed.
• The final chapter in the book is called Beginnings and Endings (bedayat wa nehayat) which I think is perfectly named.  How things have changed at their end from how they started out.  He started life with a fiery want to change the world and has realized that that is out of his reach.  He tells stories of all of the people he knew and how they were dissapointed in life.
• He also describes a time when he was torn between deciding on two very good jobs and an older relative told him that later in life these decisions will not matter much because on the long run the effect of these short term decisions is minimal.
• In the final page he says that although life is full of dissapointments it is still filled with happy moments and how there is still joy in life by seeing his children or grandchildren, enjoying a nice meal or having nice company.  On his father in law’s birthday, which was a couple of months after he (his father in law) had died, his wife and daughter went to visit his grave.  His daughter who was pregnant at the time went into labour and had her son on the same day as her grandfather’s birthday.  With this he concludes that a day which carried a sad memory was transformed into a beautiful one.

I personally learned alot and did alot of thinking during and after reading this book.  And there is no way I could have done the book justice by this short review.  It is full of gems of wisdom that are between the lines, lessons learned and beautiful memories of a man and also of a nation.  I give it a five star rating.

I am part of a wonderful group of girls who are part of a book club. Most months we vote to choose which book will be our required reading book to be reviewed at the end of the month. This month the choice was between two books, one I had already read and one I was already planning to start reading. Here is my real question is democracy a good thing? Most people chose the book I had already read so that’s the book of the month. A democracy by definition is where the majority of the people get to choose what everyone (including the opposing minority) should do. Is that fair? What if you are always part of the minority, does that mean the democracy to you is just another dictatorship only led by a group of people instead of one person? I am of course in no way saying that iron rule is a better idea but what if the book was chosen say by randomly picking out its name from a hat? At the end of the day reading is not such a big deal, you could always find one where people are mostly like yourself so you will end up reading mostly books you like, but again is that a good thing? Isn’t diversity a better thing? There are cultures where they have a group of “elders” who decide the clan’s fate, but that is not a good idea all the time, the elders might be out of touch with the rest of the population or just out of date or might not always be able to reach the best decision for whatever reasons. I know this should probably be listed under byzantine discussions but I still can’t decide which is the best political or choice system out there and could easily argue for or against any system. In the end the best option is always where the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
What do you think?

1. My cell phone
2. Wallet and keys
3. Peices of paper and pens
4. Gum
5. Sunglasses

Gmail Quota

When I got a Gmail invite in June 2004 (I did beg for it), I thought yaay 1GB worth of email that’s more than I could ever need.  Today after emptying my trash, deleting spam and any other useless emails I realized I had filled 21% of my quota.  I still have lots to go but I do delete emails which I find useless and not worth keeping yet I still have managed to accumulate 1.5 GB.  I am not sure if that is because I like to keep good email or because I have lots of important attachments which I also like to have saved.

It reminded me of the time I bought my first 1GB harddrive many many years ago and I also thought at the time why on earth do I need all that storage for.  After building a large collection of ebooks, the introduction of digital cameras and lots of good songs later, I now know that you will always find ways to fill up all that memory.

• Two Social Justice teachers have decided to start eating on one dollar a day.
• Disney becomes couture.
• Musicovery is the best way to find new music.
• Guess what men also do these girly things (it’s in Arabic though).
• Why do people get married?
• Waste some time, play Garfield’s Lasagna from heaven
• Or even better make your own lasagna.

Studying by notashamed

I was thinking of all of the useless courses I had taken in my life and realized that I have studied lots of really useless subjects.  I am sad that I never got a chance to do real research work or was allowed to be creative or bold enough and come up with new ideas.  University was not challenging enough I guess.  I spent most of my lectures doodling or sitting way back reading other books or playing games.

• The classification of species.  A friend of mine pointed this out, we both went on to study engineering so we were both wondering why we had to know about the animal kingdoms so much.
• Economics at University.  I was excited to study Economics but it turned out all about depreciation of value of whatever you buy.  We never even got a chance to read about the theories of economics or the different philosophies.
• So many math courses.  I am sure there was a reason for having to study more math courses than any of the other majors but I still don’t see the relevance of all the differentiation and integration rules to life.  Had I known that, I would not have taken O. Level, AS Level and A. Level Math in my IGCSEs.
• Artificial Intelligence.  Another course which I was very excited to take but was bummed out by the way it was taught.
• Cathodic Protection.  Seriously why would anyone need to learn how that works unless you are actually going to do it.  The funny thing was that I ended up working with someone on software for calculations of cathodic protection, but I could have figured it out on my own without having to waste a whole semester studying it.
• Environmental Studies (AKA Bee2a).  I am just as passionate about the environment as the next person and think we really need to help preserve it and save it.  Again, the way it was taught was a complete waste of time.

Things I wish I had a chance to study

• Art
• History
• Philosophy
• Psychology
• Creative Writing
• Japanese
• Arabic Literature
• Arabic Calligraphy
• Child Development