 I subscribe to a wonderful podcast called ThePsychFiles by Michael Britt a psychology professor, he talks about everyday topics with a psychological twist. In his episode titled “How Do You Really Raise Self-Esteem? The Incredibles vs. American Idol” he touches on the subject of praising children on talent versus effort and how it really affects them. Another article by the Scientific American, The secret to raising smart kids, also talks about the same issue.
I watched The Incredibles a while back and really enjoyed it but I had never thought about it deeply or about what underlying message it might be trying to convey. This review points out lots of points which I had previously missed such as recognizing the stay at home mom who left behind a life of super heroism and the dad who leaves the limelight to work in a miserable cubicle. Perhaps I never gave it second thought because at the time I was single and watched it for the entertainment value (which was super) and today I am married and expecting my first child and already trying to figure out what are the kind of movies I want my kid to watch and which I want to filter to make sure she is only exposed to positive influences.
I just finished reading In Search of Islamic Feminism by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea. The author visits Muslim countries in search of what she is calling Islamic Feminism, interestingly she encounters a very vocal and active group of women working real hard to improve women’s lives yet do not want to be called feminists. Partly because “feminists” as seen by these women is associated with the Western type of feminism which is quite different than what is happening in these countries. Perhaps in Muslim countries, women already know what their rights are, the Quran is very clear on it. Islam has very clear laws and rules and they are all in favor of protecting and respecting women. The problem is that they are either misinterpreted or not followed, and this is what womens movements are mainly trying to accomplish, to bring these laws into the light and make sure they are followed correctly.
The book is fun to read, because it is more like a story of B.J.’s (as her friends call her in the book) journey to these countries. She has been to most of them before and is revisiting and also tells of how things have changed. She is neither judgmental of the culture nor completely unbiased which makes the reading even more fun and relaxed.
Reviews of the book:
Middle East Policy Council journal
Mascunilism blog
I enjoy watching documentaries, I prefer the factual programs to soaps, dramas, silly movies and reality TV. I find it educational intellectual entertainment. I came across The Century of the Self completely by chance. It is a four part documentary by Adam Curtis. In his own words the series is “about how those in power have used Freud’s theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy”.
I have always known that the media, politics and business do not just happen to market their ideas and products but they actively try to control what we think so we buy, vote or believe more of what they have. The documentary shows how this came to be, and how Freud’s ideas and theories were interpreted and used to manipulate the crowds.
Reminds me of the Arabic phrase “waraya ya kherfan” translation; “behind me you sheep”.
Watch the series on Google video.
“‘Hub’ is love, ‘ishq’ is love that entwines two people together, ‘shaghaf’ is love that nests in the chambers of the heart, ‘hayam’ is love that wanders the earth, ‘teeh’ is love in which you loose yourself, ‘walah’ is love that carries sorrow with it, ‘sababah’ is love that exudes from your pores, ‘hawa’ is love that shares its name with ‘air’ and ‘falling’, ‘gharam’ is love that is willing to pay the price.”
An Excerpt from the book “The Map of love” by Ahdaf Soueif.
I just finished reading the book and was sad to see it come to an end. Although from the excerpt it might seem that it was a soppy love story but this is so far from the truth. It is an amazing saga of several generations with a historical backdrop of Egypt at the beginning and end of the century. The characters were so entertaining and their lives were like windows into that era. I had previously read “In the Eye of The Sun” by the same author which I also loved but did not grab me like this one. Perhaps the reason why I enjoyed the book so much was because it transported me to a time in Egypt when things were so much better yet so much worse, a time when people had political aspirations and the will and drive to fight for their rights, like universities, women’s education and independence. It might seem weird that I mention independence last but I truly believe that when a nation is educated its independence becomes and inevitability.
As for the above excerpt, it truly is amazing to look at Arabic from the point of view of a non-Arabic speaker. I had always wondered why we only have one word in Arabic which we use interchangeably for love and like but I realized now that we have so many more versions of “love” than I had previously though. Arabic is truly poetic and romantic yet at the same time it is timeless and strong.
I read it and I am sad to let go of 7 years of waiting for the books and expecting them. I got the book and read it in 2 days, seriously I couldn’t put it down. 7 books, many different characters and what felt like a lifetime of getting to know them and inviting these people and places inside my imagination. Sometimes I think the reason, the Potter books were so successful was because you could escape reality and enter a magical world where things could fly and people could apparate to where they wanted. Isn’t that the reason why we read fiction in general, for that few hours of going someplace life won’t let you go? When I was younger I always felt safe with a book, excited and even involved in lives of other people, lives that were so different than mine, so much more exciting and to me it always felt real.
Alot of characters die in the last installment, (no spoilers, because I hate spoiling other people’s chances of discovering an ending on their own) but there was closure. An ending any differently may have made it difficult to let go, and perhaps at the end of the day one must remember that this is a children’s book to begin with. They have to have closure, it would be very difficult to write an open ended ambiguous ending for a child. It would be like writing Cinderella and not knowing what would happen to her and Prince Charming, or ending it when she arrives home safely after her carriage turning into a pumpkin, at least feeling that she ended up with her Prince leaves you thinking that happy endings exist in real life.
I am ranting and I don’t think I am being very coherent, but then again who cares? Perhaps I am just trying to say goodbye to characters in a series of books, or trying to say goodbye to a past part of my life that I so dearly held on to. Either way the feeling is the same, I was never good at goodbyes, especially when you know they will not be followed by a Hello even in a very distant future. The journey of life sometimes takes you to places you do not wish to go with no return route. Part of growing up is accepting that and getting along with that fact, no matter how hard you want to go back.
Too much, seriously 8 movies is too much in a day and a half. We were bored, Thursday night, and the weather was not exactly helping and since in Kuwait your going out options are quite limited we decided to stay in and watch a movie, the only problem is my husband got 8, and the plan was to watch 2 or 3 and keep the rest for the next weekend.
We started off with Katkoot, I don’t like Mohamed Sa3d at all, his voice is seriously creepy and annoying to me but hubby thinks he’s funny so I thought let’s get rid of this one to watch the more interesting movies later. Then we moved on to 3omaret Ya3kubian, I had already read the book and thought it was an interesting how he built the characters and lives of these people around one building, describing the changes that occurred in Egypt over 50 years with a simple metaphor, the movie in comparison sucks. Yes, it is an all-star cast but there was nothing there, it was just a regular Egyptian movie, good vs evil bla bla bla. It lost the real flavor and there were lots of parts that were missing in the movie that explained more about the story that were just cut out. Next we popped in 7arb Italia, we managed to fall asleep half way thru it, so we turned it off and started it later on Friday. This one was interesting, the storyline more entertaining although a bit unreal for Egypt and lacked better scenery in Rome.
The Arabic movies were finished finally and we could move on to more interesting English movies.
Wesley Snipes was next in The Contractor, I didn’t like this one at all, set in London about a CIA agent who is basically an assasin, it was too I dunno, it just wasn’t my kind of thriller or action move. The next movie was one I wanted to watch, Die Hard 4.0., I have to confess I am a Die Hard fan, I just like them, I enjoy Bruce Willis being John McLane, and this one sure didn’t disapoint me. Virtual terrorists are having a go at the US of A and are shutting down transportation, Utilities and connectivity, John has to save the country again by killing helicopters with cars and pushing people down elevator shafts. Pretty awesome effects and the plot itself was pretty convincing. On a different summery note, Surf’s up was next, this is a lovely movie, slightly childish but very inspiring and cute is the word that keeps popping into my head, those little penguins were sooooo cute. Back to the cruel world, and the story of a Norse boy left in North America eons ago when it was only inhabited by the Red Indians and how they brought him up as one of their own and his story of finding his path when the Vikings return to kill more Indians, “The PathFinder”. This one reminded me of Apocalypto but it was an ok movie overall.
And finally the one we were all waiting for Pirates of the Caribbean At Worlds End, yes I think Johny Depp is cute but the movie is funny and actiony and lots of things all at once.
I don’t recommend doing this, because you can OD on movies but it was fun, you also have to add pizza, ice cream and loads of chocolate sauce.
Most of my friends always find my “thing” for Amr Diab music quite weird, because it totally doesn’t fit with the rest of my music tastes. Yes it is true and I confess, but I have a reason. Growing up, Amr Diab always would release an album in the summer, and it would always psychologically get anchored to a happy summer vacation mood so by default any Amr Diab music just reminds me of the summer and the good days of being young and not caring about tomorrow.
This one is different, this one seems to hit home harder than the others, it reminds me of those summers more than the others and of Egypt and family and friends who are far away. Especially the song “Tool Mana Shayfak Gambi” which might sound corny to lots of you out there, but it has a different meaning to me, I keep thinking of the little things I used to love about Egypt, and when you are far away you really do tend to forget all of the bad things, those nuisances that made you go home angry and irritated, like double parking, hot & humid weather, rude people in the streets who spit and love shouting obscenities, and many more. You just tend to have a romanticized view of it, of sunny summers, clear weather, the beaches, having coffee with friends, going to Marina with your sister singing all your favorite songs at the top of your lungs all the way and back, skipping a couple of hours of work to go to the pool in the summer with your best friend.
Its not about the songs, or a singer or even the music, it is about what they might represent in our subconscious, as memories and feelings.
 For some strange reason I remembered this book called “The Cay” by Theodore Taylor. It is a sad story and inspiring one at the same time. The Cay is the story of Phillip, a boy living on the island of Curacao off the island of Venezuela during World War II. As he and his mother are trying to escape the war and head back to their home in Virginia, their ship sinks. Phillip survives the boat accident only to be trapped on an island with a black man and a cat. The accident leaves Phillip blind. Not only does he have to learn adjust to his blindness, but he must learn to survive on the barren island in the Caribbean Sea. Phillip is also faced with other challenges including a hurricane. I read it as part of a school project when I was in primary school in the UK. It is a story about survival and resilience in the face of adversity. I have always wondered why we never read anything that was inspirational or even thought provoking during my years in the Egyptian Educational system. I even think that “The Little Prince” by the French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry should be read by everyone. It is imaginary, creative and might even cause you to do a little bit of soul searching.  The Prince is an alien which looks very human like and goes around traveling around the planets, discovering things, meeting people and creatures and learning so many things. If you would like to read it, here is a link to an online version. The illustrations are by the author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry himself and I really recommend taking the time to read the book, then thinking for a few moments about how growing up or older has affected you.
After my last post on free software, Tarek commented that ClamWin did not provide real time virus scanning and recommended WinPooch, so I uninstalled ClamWin and installed WinPooch to give it a try. The interface wasn’t any better than ClamWin and had two very annoying issues. The first was that the tray icon was a pair of eyes which kept looking left and right and it was freaking me out, the second issue was whenever something came up that needed user interaction, the application would bark. Yes I mean doggy bark and that was very embarassing at work and even at home it would totally scare me when I wasn’t concentrating that my anti virus was barking. So I looked around again and installed Comodo. It looks easier to use and I will be using it for a while and decide if I want to keep it or if I will be going back to Google and asking for another anti virus program.
I watched Sandra Bullock’s Premonition movie last night and loved it. Sony pictures presents a confusing movie. Linda Quinn Hanson ( Bullock ) wakes up one day and finds Jim ( Julian McMahon) her husband dead and then the next days alive. Her days are mixed up and Thursday comes before Tuesday and everything is so wrong. With two beautiful girls and many unanswered questions she tries to piece everything together. It’s like everyone and everything is against her. The fast pace of the movie makes it enjoyable to watch and the events take place in a single week. Bullock questions her sanity, he husbands faithfulness and her next step. I definitely recommend this movie.
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