Thus Spoke Jerry Seinfeld ... Marriage

                                                                                                                                                                      To me the thing about marriage is, I can't believe how often it happens. I mean I like the idea of it, but I can't believe that many people are meetin' people that they want to see every single day, everyday, everyday, everyday, everyday. That should like happen three or four times... you know in the whole century. 





P.s: I posted this from home, while my entire extended family went out to celebrate someone's engagement. Seriously, why do I have to leave my dear room, dear books, dear blog and dear pajamas to go celebrate that someone I barely know is signing a lunatic contract for the the rest of their life? Why! 

Marshall And Lilly: One Healthy Couple

I was just watching Sunrise, one of the last episodes of the final season of How I Met Your Mother

(I should not go on an on about how sad it is for such a good show to end, this post is about something else).

There is this conversation between Marshall, Lilly's ghost, 2005 Lilly's Ghost and his Father's Ghost.
When the father tells him that you don't get to hurt her back because she once hurt you, this is not how it works in a marriage.

Those words stopped me.

I'd rather (at least at this point) not go through personal details, but ever since I stopped being a "loner" I found out that I lack a dozen of skills that makes a "shared" life possible.

I can't exactly describe my sentimental disabilities, but when you are in love (and more importantly in a relationship) you simply experience an expansion in your limits as a person (as a mere individual), suddenly there is someone else "within" your existence and in spite of how nice, romantic bla bla bla that is, but it is a responsibility if a very tricky kind, because you can no longer act like an individual (think alone, decide alone, be a bitch, be nice and supportive) and yet the "team work" is constant work!

It is a huge effort. NafNaf and I had a conversation once about this and I told him that he has to put an effort in the "relation work" and he said "I thought a relation is the place where you get to relax after you are exhausted from all the other work".

When I thought about what he said I realized one thing: We are soooo Young!
Really, it was not easy for me either to use a term like "work on a relation", that is not romantic, I have always thought it is a God-given thing, that it just happens, but with the experience I came to realize that a love relationship is like a sophisticated mansion, the bigger and the nicer it is, the more maintenance it requires.

Going back to Marshall and Lilly, they are one of the reasons why I am gonna miss How I Met Your Mother, simply because you don't get to see such healthy examples neither in real life nor in TV.

If those two have taught me a listen, it would be: Never Keep Score. :)
   

I Know Where I'm Going Now

Remember when I was wondering about the book that I am going to read next? 

Well I got an idea from Inkitab's twitter. They are going to discuss "Memoirs From The House Of The Dead" by Dostoevsky. 

I NEVER participated in a book club, not even when I had to back in the school days, I used to read the book and go to the discussion but I never opened my mouth. 

I can't recall why I didn't actually participate in school, but I clearly know now why I don't prefer participating in a book club, it is because I simply don't trust people's tastes and choices. 

Yeah, this is so cocky and arrogant, but what shall I do? Social Media taught me better than any teacher that people are mostly an aggregate of imitators who have no "judgement" of their own. And I believe that the setting of a "book club" enhances the collective mentality where people are going to look for the points of agreement rather than the points of disagreement. 

Of course I can't judge if I had never been in such clubs, but I know Jordan, I know Jordanians, I know believers and I know people who believe in "given facts" and their willingness to defend their "facts". 

Yet, I still want to give it a shot, what am I going to lose anyway? It's Dostoevsky, it is never bad to spend hours with him. I Love him, and If I ever find a way (metaphysically, scientifically or magically) to meet him, I'll have a long long conversation with him and we will talk like old friends, and -God Help Me- I will converse with him in his heart-melting language: Russian. 

Over and Out  

The Worst Interpretation Ever: Law Consecutively

Yesterday's interpretation was the worst by all means.

There is a proverb that I made up, it goes like this: "No interpretation is uncomfortable for ever". I know this for a fact. Each time I go to an interpretation job I feel a subtle anguish at the beginning, I feel a bit blinded by flashing lights of the new topic, but after a few minutes I just get used to it and some invisible wings grow on my shoulders and I soar in the beautiful sky of words.

I came to peace with those minutes of anguish at the beginning, I expect them and I wisely wait for them to pass me by. But yesterday, it was something else, because the anguish hung there around me throughout the entire day, and I could not sense the relaxation until I was doing my last two turns only.

In the morning I was left for 90 minutes on my own without the relief interpreter (a word that I learnt today! Relief: substitute, assistant, someone who relieves you when you are suffocating) and when I got to the room (a room not a hall or anything) and I found no interpretation booth I just wanted to flee the hotel and pretend like I never got the call: It was CONSECUTIVE!

I can't mention enough how much I hate consecutive interpretation, can I? No I can't.
Consecutive interpretation tests your ability to memorize what people just said, it has nothing to do on how fluent you are, or how good of an interpreter you are.

And the topic, Dear Lord of the Heavens!!

(I am not gonna go in details because I am not entitled to) But hear me out here, it was a project team from the European Union that had been working in Jordan for 4 years now, and their project ends this upcoming October, So they were working with "partners" from a Jordanian ministry so the project will be "sustainable" after the Eu team leaves.

Hahahaha, really, I came to find those meeting terribly funny, "Sustainable" who?!! If the project barely moved forward a couple of steps meanwhile the EU team was above the government's head all the time, how will anything move forward when they leave?!

Anyhow I learned some new words (the hard way of course, my Manager\Co-interpreter\Teacher whispered them to me in a small room where everyone could notice that I did not know them)

On probation: تحت المراقبة، تحت الاختبار
court of appeal: محكمة استئناف
court of cassation: محكمة التمييز
penal code: قانون العقوبات
feasibility study: دراسة جدوى
grand criminal court: محكمة الجنايات الكبرى
palace of justice: قصر العدل
Bar association: نقابة المحامين
liaison officer: ضابط ارتباط
pre trial detention: الاحتجاز قبل المحاكمة
administrative detention: التوقيف الإداري
execution of judgement: تنفيذ الحكم
defendant: المدعى عليه
radicalization of prisoners: تطرّف المساجين

I feel ashamed for not knowing those words, but what shall I say, late better than never.  

Where Do I go Now?

So I have been reading this book for 5 days now. I was startled by my own self, because I could see ever since the beginning that it was a 560 pages book, but still I said "what the heck, am gonna give it a shot" and it turned out to be an enjoyable book, and I was not booked for any interpretation jobs those last 3 days, so yesterday for example, I read 200 pages while sitting under a tree in the university.

Now I am 90 pages away from the end, and I felt that subtle reluctance, that goes like a siren inside my head: Now WHAT?!!

I have 901 files on my kindle, of course I have a LOT of choices, but still, each time I am about to finish a book or a TV series I feel like I am losing friends and that is never comfortable.

And in order to not send mixed signals, I don't like the book that I am reading, and I am gonna detail my thoughts in a separate post as soon as am done, but I just had to whine, sue me :)