I Read Another Book

This is not the book that am reading those days, I was actually reading "Orlando" of Virginia Woolf, and I was so excited about it although it is a very hard slow book.

But as I was looking at the books in the tiny book sale in the Faculty of Arts I saw this book "Om Hashem's Lamp". I have heard about it from a poet who once passed by B-san's office. I did not exactly like the poet or consider him a "credible book recommendation resource" but I liked the book's title, and I had this childish kick that goes like this "I don't want people talking about a book that I don't know".

So I paid three JD's for it and read half of it while waiting for my father to come pick me up from the gym, and the other half when I was on the bus from Amman to Irbed.

It is a Meh book. But it is also a book that you should read, just to remember how issues were approached in the literature of the twentieth century, the way they perceived the other, and the way writers shamelessly addressed the reader into what they thought is correct and "righteous".

Baaaad old times. 

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شيطنات الطفلة الخبيثة Las Travesuras de la Niña Mala

I Finished a Book

I know, it sounds pathetic, to just yell to the world: I FINISHED A BOOK..

But let's be a bit honest here, ever since I started my masters year I started having this short temper for reading. I must have started 20 books and have not finished any of them.

And while I can blame the books, I just blamed myself, because I could not concentrate, I had too much to do, and I encountered the titles of too many books in the course of a normal day, to the extent that I was reading more than one book at the same time without actually reaching the end of any of them.

But with "Las Traveuras De La Niña Mala" things were simply different. Of course I am different myself, I have been so for a while now. I am waking up early, going to the gym, dieting, saving money and reading with a soldier's persistence. But the book, Oh dear, it is just a good book, it just spreads the pages infront of you and calls you to come digging through the events, the words, the surprises and the music of Spanish words.

This post is not about the book. It is just about how happy I felt when I turned the last page. Of course I was a bit melancholic for losing all the friends I met throughout the pages, but it was a moment of regaining myself definition.

I am a girl that reads, this is what I have done throughout my ENTIRE life, actually I am not good at anything else (except for writing and translating, which is ,in a matter of fact, is a simple variation of reading itself) and now I feel like I am back to the top of the world.

How tiny does everything seem!   

Dear Turkey :)

Dear Turkey, Today I went to my nutritionist and found out that I have already lost all the kilos that I gained during the two months I spent there.

I am so happy, proud of my effort, and looking forward for more.  

Resistance

If I had seen this shot, taken anywhere else in the world, I would have said that it is pointless rhetoric that does not change the reality one inch. 

Although I always have believed in arts (literature, music, painting, sculpture, theater, cinema etc etc) but I never believed in the artistic initiatives that were presented under the definition of "acts of resistance''. To me they seemed like initiatives of spoiled kids who have nothing better to offer. 

But this, in Al-Yarmouk Refugee Camp in Damascus, this is different. It's just a sign that life has not stopped. In one of the most catastrophic sites of the world today, standing there with a violin and a piano you mock the slaughterer and that on its own is a pure act of resistance.  

Erasmus Reminder: Disappointment! !

Today I got this from Hermes Erasmus Scholarship. As if I needed a reminder to finish filling up a scholarship's form!! 

I was told earlier by the scholarship's team that I am not eligible for it, for I stayed more than 12 months in the European Union during the last five years, therefore I may not even apply. 

I was down for a few days after it, but not exactly. I am so homesick and willing to go back to Spain in whatever possible way, but still I fell like I have unfinished business in Amman. 

This time, it feels different. And although I have never been fed up with the city and the people as much as I am fed up now, but I just feel like waiting a little before I get on the next plane and flee everything. 

I don't know why, but maybe I am growing older, and maybe I want to accomplish something here, in work and in my social circle, or maybe simply because my friends have not left the city. 

When I think of next September I just suffocate, they are going in all directions, to the States,  England, Turkey and Australia. If things go as planned for them, then I would be truly mad on each and every scholarship or employer who says that am not eligible for I don't know what reason. 

What Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: MUCH!

Listen to this
http://umano.me/c/r1pKL/what-the-most-successful-people-do-before-breakfast
Or Read it
http://theweek.com/article/index/255588/what-the-most-successful-people-do-before-breakfast


I must have listened to this article almost 5 or 6 times, one of them with Uncle Wael (whom I have always considered as the person with the toughest willpower I ever knew).

It is always good to find an article like this one, that would motivate you to become a person - as my Mom says - "Worthy of the life you were given".

But at this point of my life, I needed a pat on my shoulder, because I have NEVER came close to fully enjoy my potentials and my energy as I am doing now.

It was a very very personal and surprisingly weird motive. After all those years of procrastination love came and gave me the slap that I have always needed!

I never thought I would say this, but: My name is Evaluna, and I was down with love.

I realized this fact the hard way. I suddenly felt like I no longer have a life of my own, that I postponed all the things I consider important to me and finally I reached a point where I was subconsciously sabotaging my relationship.

By then, I had THE TALK with B-san, my wise and 6 years elder great friend. She put me on the couch in their salon and bombarded my laziness camps with a motivating discourse about "focus".

 She must have said the word "focus" over 20 times. And as she knew me very well she, she was able to make a mental list of the things that I have to work on, translation, interpretation, Spanish, Russian, reading, saving money, going to the gym, solving my obesity problem and work on my writing.

Those have always been my priorities, but this word had a vague meaning apparently! Because in spite of them being priorities I barely did anything about them.

I wasted money although I made a lot of it. I started books and did not actually finish them. I started writing novels and I left them halfway. I always registered in gyms and stopped going after a week or two. I wasted time on the internet. I left hard things and took simpler tasks.

And Suddenly: I simply STOPPED.

I deactivated my Facebook account two months ago, and in that moment I said to myself -for the very first time- it might be for good this time.

I started going to the gym. I have been going for a month now. Every SINGLE day, no excuses accepted. I assigned time of pure solitude for reading, writing my diary, and working on a writing project.

Now I wake up earlier even on Fridays, and finding this article randomly looked like a cosmic sign of approval for the change I achieved after almost 19 years of trying.

Now the real challenge is to keep up the good work. I won't be making any promises to myself, but at least now I know that willpower has a muscle, and after I got it tough and hard it would be so heart breaking to let wither again.

Here are some quotes that I liked and posted on my Instagram:


"Willpower," Baumeister and co-author John Tierney write, "like a muscle, becomes fatigued from overuse."


People who were serious about exercise did it in the mornings. At that point, emergencies had yet to form, and they would only have to shower once. As Gordo Byrn, a triathlon coach, once told me, "There's always a reason to skip a four o'clock workout, and it's going to be a good reason, too."


P.S: Well, I hate that there is no embedding option on Umano, but this could be modified in future versions of on of the most useful applications in the history of AppLandia :p