Home sweet home

The drive back to Alain after few weeks in Dubai was so calming and beautiful; I was so happy I'm going home. I couldn't stop looking at everything around me and thinking how people should spend more time looking at the small things around them; the blue clear sky and the sand dunes with green tree in between makes a great portrait that I would never tire from.

They always say that you don't appreciate what you have until you realize that you might lose it and lose it soon, which, I believe, is true. When I realized that I might move to Dubai and my drive to school will be around 30 minutes instead of the SIX minutes here; I almost had a heart attack.

I think of how lovely the sky looks at sunset every now and then, it's so full of colors; orange blue red and all that is that can be made from these colors, I just can't forget how I felt once at sunset when I was driving in the car, the sun was straight ahead, so big, huge, and full of color, it just makes me think of bigger things and life.

This brings a question to my mind, it is a normal thing for friends to call each other when they look at the sky and see how beautiful it is? When they look at a full-moon and feel so fascinated with its beauty?

Because we had to stop somewhere on the way home, we didn't take the usual right when you enter Alain. For some reasons, which might be the songs I was listening to, I kept thinking of when I was a child and what everything meant to me, everything reminded me of along time ago (yea, right, like 4, 5 years ago? I'm just feeling old, like I already have a history! :D) I saw the sign to Hilli and couldn't stop laughing and for some reasons I remembered this one incident when a friend suggested we skate anticlockwise and a guy kicked me in the stomach. I remembered how stupid we were (doesn't mean I'm not stupid now) and smiled.

I saw that same friend just few minutes later which was so weird and brought back memories best forgotten.

I'm back home and back to my life and the one I love. University starts tomorrow, which is not great but also the best thing that can happen in the world. Good luck to everyone!

Give Thanks to Allah

Give thanks to Allah, a Michael Jackson* song! When I first was told about it I thought it is some kind of joke but when I searched online I found it listed with all the other songs by Michael Jackson on the lyrics sites. The song is actually nice, compared to other anasheeds anyways.

It is said that song was made for the Nation of Islam, and I tried to think of reasons as to why would Michael Jackson sing it:


• The rumors are true; Michael Jackson did join the Nation of Islam.


• He sang it for him because they supported him when he was sued.


• Michael Jackson played with a rich kid from Nation of Islam, the child of someone with influence and so as to keep things quiet he did the song.


• As a brother in color, and to support the Nation of Islam he did the song.


Anyone has more ideas and wants to share?

I went to check and read more about Nation of Islam and want to clarify someone to those who don't already know: Nation of Islam is not Islam because it is stated clearly in the Quran that in Islam all human beings are equal and those who are distinguished are so with their Taqwa (faith)

I didn't read the whole article here, but these are some points that I found interesting:

6. WE BELIEVE in the judgment; we believe this first judgment will take place as God revealed, in America.
12. WE BELIEVE that Allah (God) appeared in the Person of Master W. Fard Muhammad, July, 1930; the long-awaited "Messiah" of the Christians and the "Mahdi" of the Muslims.


* Anyone who comments and call him MJ will be shot on the spot; call him Michael, Jackson, Michael Jackson, Jackass, whatever you want but NOT MJ.

Finally Finals

Finals started and everything is going fine and I'm having the time of my life but I came to realize few things, such as why do people (or is it only me?) fine themselves doing things that they would never do in any other case only to waste time? Maybe it is because we want to make ourselves believe that we are actually doing something and not wasting our time. Here are some of the things I found myself doing:


1. Reading all the Arabic newspaper, not scanning them, but actually sitting down and reading them.
2. Catching up with people I didn't talk to for months! I mean, I have to talk to them at one point or another, so why not now?
3. Checking every website that was mention in my MIS book while I was studying; there are examples of every website that can be found online.
4. Reading books at 2 AM that I had for months and never cared to read more than three pages from.
5. Checked the yahoo chat room about Islam, for the first time and I couldn't stay for more than 15 minutes, if not less.
6. Finding in necessary to calculate my average one hundred and one times before each final exam and how much points can I miss and still get an A or such.
7. Finishes the exam fast and decide how many points I might miss and guess my grade.
8. Calculating how many credit hours do I have until I graduate and how many courses should I take every semester to finish in such time.
9. Thinking of were I'm going to do my internship, even though I still don't have to think of it.
10. Exercising is good for my health.
11. Playing computer games..
12. Finding it so important and vital that I discuss important issues in the world with friends.
13. Writing this.
    
    I'm going to stop at 13; I don't want to give a bad impression.
    
    Maybe I should write a post about the difference between being an IT student and a Business student, that would be fun.

Change

"Any change, any loss, does not make us victims. Others can shake you, surprise you, disappoint you, but they can't prevent you from acting, from taking the situation you're presented with and moving on. No matter where you are in life, no matter what your situation, you can always do something. You always have a choice and the choice can be power." -Blaine Lee

The mall story

Last week I went to Mall of the Emirates with my family, they went to the food court while I went with A and F to Starbucks to get drinks. When we went to the food court we found M talking to a lady and the lady was raising her voice and pointing at M rudely, when we asked what's going on, we were told that the lady is wearing nasty clothes and was sitting in a way to reveal as much as possible (she was not wearing underwear this time!) and when M asked her to sit and try to cover herself the lady started yelling at M and telling her it's none of her business and that she is not Muslim, M told the lady that 'I don't care what your religion is, I just don't like to see such things in my country' and the lady said something which meant in short 'you cover yourself here, but when you leave your country you take everything off.' She also said something's about this country and how people here are just stupid or something. That just pissed M off and she just tried to ignore the lady so not to make a scene but the lady won't stop saying rude things. That was when we came; I asked where is the lady and her group from and was told from Colombia. A tried to calm everyone down and told the lady to just let go but she wouldn't and so she went to call the security guy. I was sitting there waiting for A to come back and the lady started shaking and laughing at us, I got so mad and felt like slapping her, honestly I did feel like slapping her, but since A is going to call the security, I thought we should give them a chance to do something about it. When A came back with two guys, they ladies started laughing and saying side comments to each other, M told the guys what happened and she told him that he better do something about it or she will take this whole thing to higher authority, because her wearing that is something and her insulting the country and its people is something else. I guess the mall's security saw in the cameras the chaos around us and so few other guys came who were not wearing the uniform. When they guy started talking to the lady she said something about how she respect this country and such, she also told him that what she is not wearing anything bad and stood to show him and the guy was like 'I don't want to see!!' just when the other guys came and pointed at A and said 'you see her! How she is covered and all? When she leaves this country she takes off all her clothes' and because her English is bad she tried to get the message over by motioning how she would take off her bra! That was what they other guys heard and they told her and the ladies with her to take their food and escorted them out of the mall. I forgot to mention that we found the ladies are originally Lebanese and that they understand Arabic.

That was the story; do I need to comment on it? I will leave that for the comments.

GCC

Yesterday, I read in the gulfnews that in the GCC summit they decided that 'Iran is not worrisome' and I was surprised and confused because few weeks ago the UAE minister of foreign affairs Rashid Abdullah had an interview on TV and he was so clear in stating that Iran IS worrisome. It turned out that Amr Moussa - The Secretary General of the League of Arab States is the one who said it is not worrisome and so this is what was written in gulfnews about it, I'm going to post it here because I want to highlight few parts.

Abdullah dismisses Mousa's concerns

Dubai: UAE Foreign Minister Rashid Abdullah has brushed off a letter sent to the 26th GCC Summit by Amr Mousa, Secretary General of the Arab League. He said Mousa should worry more about the security of the Gulf region.

The letter, part of which was published by a Kuwaiti newspaper, criticised the GCC position on Iran's nuclear programme. Mousa reportedly urged the GCC to "support" the Iranian position and "focus more" on Israel's nuclear arsenal.

"We appreciate the worries expressed by Amr Mousa, as an Egyptian citizen, over the Israeli nuclear programme and we share them. But in the Gulf, we have fears and worries from the Iranian programme. Mousa should also talk about that," Abdullah said. "If Mousa doesn't agree with us, that is his business."

The letter also accused the GCC of exerting undue pressure on Syria and blaming it of killing former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri. The Kuwaiti newspaper described the letter as "outrageous."

In that interview few weeks ago on TV, the reporter said that the minister was so direct and answer questioned directly not like people in politics in the Arab world, he stated that the minister said more than they usually do.

Books

Veronika decides to die – Paulo Coelho

Veronika seems to have everything she could wish for. She is young and pretty, has plenty of attractive boyfriends, goes dancing, has a steady job, a loving family. Yes Veronika is not happy; something is lacking in her life. On the morning of November 11th 1997, she decides to die. She takes an overdose of sleeping pills, only to wake some time later in Villete, the local hospital. There she is told that although she is alive now her heart is damaged and she has only a few days to live…
This story follows Veronika through these intense days as, to her surprise, she finds herself drawn into the enclosed world of Villlete. She begins to notice more, to become interested in the other patients. She starts to see her past relationships much more clearly and understand why she had felt her life had no meaning. In this heightened state, Veronika discovers things she has never really allowed herself to feel before; hatred, fear, curiosity, love – even sexual awakening. Against all odds, she finds she is falling in love and wanting, if at all possible, to live again…

I want to read that book! I didn't like the only book I read by Paulo but I think I will like this book more!

I also finished reading Leo the African, it took me such a long time to finish which really annoyed me so I stayed up last night really late to finish it and I did. I liked the book more than I thought I would. I don't know how true is the history in the book, which didn't really matter much to me because I don't know much about the history of that time, it was interesting to read a book written about a different place and different people than Henry VII, and to think that the two books talk about the same time and lives so different.