Tuesday, January 29, 2008

No Title Found

My Grandpa passed away last Saturday. He died after 2 painful months of discovering that he has, i mean had, a late diagnosed cancer.
His last days were extremely painful and we all prayed a lot that God would bestow mercy on him. I have deep faith that his death was mercy for him and that he is in a better place now isA.

Like any other death incident, it makes one put things into its own perspective. It makes one see before hand his own end. It makes one focus on what is important but was long neglected. It makes one re-prioritize.

I have to say that because of my grandpa's health conditions,doctors had told us that there was no cure for his condition and that all science could do for him was a couple of sedatives and pain killers.They told us to pray and stay in remembrance of God and his mercy. So we kinda saw it coming and we were psychologically prepared to hear the bad news.

Being prepared, when i actually got the news I felt strangely calm and maybe even grateful. He was living in torture and there seemed no other way out of it. My dominating emotion was that I felt really scared for my mother's health and endurance since she was in the core of this emotional trauma and she has just lost her father. I was in state of denial.Whenever someone tells me "البقاء لله", I couldn't believe that they were talking about my grandpa. My brain made all its tricks to stay out of shock, to stay in disbelief. I felt sad but at the same time I felt that it's OK. I didn't go to work next day of course but since I felt "OK", I went to work the day after it, yesterday.
Suddenly on my way to work, it hit me. Suddenly I felt a tremendous rock on my chest. I couldn't breath. Suddenly I "understood" that my grandpa passed away and that I wont ever gonna see him again. I will not hear him laugh, I will not see him praying or reading the quraan. I will not talk to him,learn from him. I will not listen to his wise words, his childhood memories, him telling my mother to leave me alone whenever she tries to discipline me.
It felt terrible. It still does. I felt like a huge void inside me. An emptiness deep in my soul that hurts only when I breathe. Something tremendous is missing. Something out of order. I burst into tears and wished that I could see him just one more time.

I was his first grandchild and he sure made me feel special. He was the only one to call me "oojy 7abebty" in an irreplaceable warm voice. He entitled me "ya doctora" just before my graduation so that to instill in me to continue my post graduate studies.


I don't think that I'll ever get over missing him. A friend of mine told me that those memories instead of bringing tears to your eyes, they would make you smile. I can't see how yet.

The worst part of the day is waking up. You know when you have a bad dream of someone dying or was about to die and wakeup gratefully that it was only a dream? Waking up feels the exact opposite. I wake up to realize that grandpa is in fact gone and that I miss him terribly.

Ouch.Writing this post is even harder than i thought. But it was also hard not writing it at all.

To whoever reads this: please pray for my grandpa, and if you know me in person kindly tolerate my rather inconsistent attitude. When people talk to me in condolence I feel like I want to be left alone. When people do leave me alone, I feel like I want a shoulder to cry on and that I am lonely, cold and scared.




Rabbena yer7amak ya Geddo :(

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

The Pledge

Enough is freakin' enough. I will have my driver's license by June,before my 22nd birthday. I don't care that I don't have a car. I don't care how stupid people drive. I don't care how much time it would take me to learn, how many accidents I make on my dad's car. It's too late already. I will learn how to drive or die trying. But I will never feel helpless, clueless or under anyone's mercy again. I will not beg taxi drivers to get me home in the rain. I will not walk in the streets fearing strangers, or thieves. I will learn how to drive and that's final.
Enough is freakin' enough.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

2 Kinds

There are 2 kinds of people:
Those who make a sippin'-sound while drinking coffee
and
Those who hate people who make a sippin'-sound while drinking coffee.

In the most difficult times

One should never forget the blessings which God bestowed on him. I am a great believer of "ان مع العسر يسر"
In the most difficult times, one should never lose faith that things are to get better.
In the most difficult times, one should never forget that he had good days as well.Good days that he might have taken for granted.

As a matter of fact,lately, my days weren't a clear cut of "good days" and "bad days". They were more like "gray days".
A lesson growing up:Almost every one has equal amount of reasons to be completely devastated and depressed and to be fully content and satisfied.It's your choice.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Garfield For President

Last May during my finals,I discovered comics.com; which made me almost fail my project management subject(how ironic). I spent more than 80% of my internet time on it. Not everyone likes comics and not everyone gets its sense of humor.At first, I didn't really get it either. But after a short while, I got the hang of it and literally adored it. For sometime, I started to talk like them.I even thought of creating my own comical series based on true characters I've met (a.k.a friends). I would be the main character with no doubt of it. I'll be the funniest, prettiest,most intelligent and an internet addict. This is not a wild exaggeration of the truth.I have a drafted mycomic.txt file on my PC where I sketched the main characters. But nothing more.
The reason why people don't get comics is that they expect to laugh at them. Cherry is always like "ana mesh 3arfa enty eh elly 3agbek fel comics deh, mafeehash ayy 7aga teda7ak".

Well, she is right. Comics are not jokes. They are just...comics. They are just light humor; its like a part of a good conversation, where someone is too smart, too stupid, too tired, too short, too late, too lazy,too fat..and so on.Somehow you would relate to a certain comics character, or you know someone who for example is as a workaholic as Dilbert.

My dear friend, Dee, is also a fan of comics. But she is specifically a fan of Garfield. She checks Garfield on daily basis. She is convinced that her horoscope is Garfield ( meaning that somehow, the Garfield daily strip, captures her today mood,or a current situation).
I am specifically a fan of Dilbert. I check Dilbert.com on daily basis. Dilbert is my horoscope only its a week late. (meaning, that somehow, the Dilbert daily strip captures my week-old mood or a week-old situation).

Now if Dee and I are talking about comics, there are only 2 persons in the world who can understand what on earth are we talking about; and these are :Dee and I.(e.g. The title of the post.)

Here is my ranked list of my fave comics.It is variable to change, but Dilbert is left untouched!

1- Dilbert



2-Moderately Confused

3-Garfield


4-Betty

5-Andy Capp


6-That's Life

If I was 5 years younger, I know I would have been a fan of snoopy. But I grew out of it without even passing through a snoopy-stage.It doesn't matter now. I have Dilbert :)

P.S: just vote for Garfield.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Down or Up?

I have been very mixed up lately. Relieved, Scared, Tired, Relaxed, Worried, Happy, Angry, Up and Down.. Its because of all the things happening at once!
And every time I am in a certain "frame of mind" or mood, I decide to blog about it and let it out. By the time I am almost done with the post, something happens and my mood is changed again. I have about 7 drafts and 1 deleted post in 3 days!

Last Sunday for example: I was studying for 12 hours straight,its 7 20 in the morning I just had a 1 hour quick nap and I still have alot to finish before my exam at 11 30. Suddenly, an earthquake hits. I was terribly confused. I was frightened of course, but 10 minutes after the quake was gone I felt that I was too busy to panic and started to study again. It usually takes me 10 days to fully recover from an earthquake.

Take for example today: I never saw my grandpa this sick in my whole entire life. I never saw him this fragile, weak cure-less and helpless. On another note, my cousin gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and named her Danya. How am I supposed to feel?I am confused. Crying seems tempting to me. But again I am too angry to cry( work related stuff).


In general, these days are extremely hard for me and my family. And you know how in hard times people show what they are really made of? I am discovering too many new traits in me and in my family members, I can't keep track.


I don't know how should I face hardships like grownups. I don't know how. I don't know what to think or what to say when things are awkward. I just freeze. I guess I am in the learning phase and I am trying to learn as much as possible from the given situation. But still I feel like wanting to be a little kid when no one is expecting anything from me. Is this cowardliness? I don't know I am still learning.



I can only ask God for help.

Friday, January 04, 2008

والناس في عز البرد يجروا و يستخبوا


وأنا متنيلا على عيني قعدة باذاكر درس بدرسه

It's terribly cold and all I want is, some free time without guilt, a good movie and my beloved بطانية


Wednesday, January 02, 2008

نوم الظالم

Who ever came up with such an expression? I find it strangely funny. I mean, imagine a person is so evil that it is considered worshiping just to be harmlessly sleeping.For a couple of days, I was completely sleep deprived. I had caffeine all of the time. It didnt help me focus and it didnt let me sleep. It's all because i am having the "pre-masters exams week". So naturally, i was procrastinating, panicking, and studying. But i didnt sleep.I couldn't.
I felt sleepy only in the midst of my exam today, perfect timing. I actually thought of "sleeping just 5 mins". I put the pen down, with my eyes half closed and couldnt think of anything except a warm bed.The only thing that stopped me from actually falling asleep is a story i heard from someone I dont remember about someone I dont know who stayed awake before the exam for so long, he was so tired by the time he was in the exam and actually fell asleep w راح عليه الامتحان .So I came back to reality, and had a couple of tridents in my mouth and completed the stupid exam.
Which reminds me how much I hated my exam today! It was something of this sort:

Question One: Discuss chapter 1.

Question Two: Discuss and illustrate chapter 2.

Question Three: Compare and Contrast
a- chapter 4 and 17.
b- chapter 7 and 8.
c- parts 5.1 and 5.6

Question four: Discuss and illustrate chapter 6. Explain.

Question five: بم تفسر
a- Chapter 9 is before chapter 10.
b- It is cold outside.
c-the impacts of chapter 5 on the weight of the book.

Question six: From your project work, try to talk about chapter 14 and your project at the same time. Be creative. What do you suggest people do after you read the chapter?

Bonus Question: Discuss and illustrate chapter 11 بالمرة

You have only 3 hours to pull this off, Good Luck!


When the time was almost up, someone asked whether he could get an extra answers-sheet. He was at the last bench and everyone turned around to see who was it. He didnt get one of course and the supervisor told him "ماينفعش, بس انت اتقر عليك خلاص"

Needless to say that I went home directly to my long-missed bed. I thought I would only wake up the next day, but I was surprisingly awake after 6 hours of sleep. I woke up on a terrible headache, a mobile ringing and an empty stomach!I discovered that I have been living on tridents for 24 hours. My mum jokingly asked me" صحيتي ليه يا أوجي, ده نوم الظالم عبادة".
I replied lazily: "جعانة".

Well, the week is just starting and I have till next tuesday in this ,well,torment ..Rabbena yostor!