I Own The World

Can I ask for more? A room of my own - that is not attached to my family's house- a good book - a terribly good book- my notebook, my fountain pen, my music and the best sense of cultivated solitude. 

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 :)  

A Glimpse of My Phone

Yesterday, my brother brought back my phone from the store. I don't recall being as happy for a "thing" as I was happy then! I was jumping up and down, I felt I was reunited with an entire galaxy (does the name come from there?!) I did not even bother to put my sim card in it, I just went checking all the messages on my WhatsApp (now that I don't have Facebook, it was my only way to communicate with the outer world) and I went on checking the classes that I missed on Coursera, the articles that I did not get to listen to on Umano, and I did all of that while listening to Mozart on Calm Radio application. (I even lost track of my hormonal cycle, so I updated my information on My Days application).

I watched half an episode of Seinfeld and I slept all happy and glorious.

Today, as I came back from work (in Sahab) I moved the sim card, and I made a call to the office, and there was Mahmoud talking, I could hear him, but he could not hear me. I hung up, called someone else (wishing that it was mahmoud's phone's mistake) but No, the microphone was disconnected!

Abu Khreisat wanted to talk to me, I sent him a message and explained why I can't pick up, so he sent a message saying: Pick Up, I'll tell you what I want and then respond with a message. He wanted me to cover Jordan University's elections for Alghad Newspaper, I was excited but he could not hear my excitement.

I felt muted myself.

When I went home, I called my brother, and with all the world's disappointment, I told him that the microphone is disconnected and he came and sent it back to the store.

I know how childish all of this sounds, I know that there are bigger struggles in the world, but I am a freaking INTERPRETER I can't function without my Wikipedia search, Google search, UNterms, Almaany Dictionary even Google translator... I keep getting mini heart attacks when I am wandering down the street, I hear a word, I find out that I have no equivalent for it and I die a little inside as I can't check it right then right there.

Prayers for my cute phone.

Ps: The painting up there, is titled: Glimpse of the sea, Long Island, by Albert Julian Onderdonk.
Check the rest of the paintings here.

Your Face In The Rear Mirror

Each time we are in a taxi and you sit in the front seat and dwell in that road silence, I steal of glimpse of your face in the rear mirror.

 I gaze into your face features, I remember the time when you were a total stranger, and the times when you were "one of my friends", and I just skip a heart beat when I realize how you moved from That to being You. 

The face that I love the most, and the face that makes me feel alive and gives a sense of meaning to the rest of my life aspects. 

You are my favorite stranger, my best friend and the only thing that embodies my fear of the future. 

Long Story Short: Belief and Atheism

So, it is Elections time in Jordan University again. It is a season that I used to love, maybe I still do love it, but not after I realized that it is always transformed into a silly parade of beliefs.

A  student elections -in an ideal world- must have something to do with a students program, academic strategies, extra curriculum activities and delivering services for students. It should have nothing to do with how "religious" are you, how "God fearing" you are, or how atheist can you be.

It is just preposterous how students are designed in a way where the world is divided into two: wither they are members of the Muslim Brotherhood, or they are filthy atheists. While for the other party, the world is divided into two: Cool liberal people, and religious scumbags who are not worthy of life.

I don't even want to go deeper into the topic, because each time I go in a conversation with either parties it stuns how little they know about each other, as if each one of them is living in a separate continent. They are both full of prejudgments, stereotypical ideas and it does not stop there, but it goes to moral defaming: Both want to prove that the other is immoral, hypocrite and thoroughly dirty, and for this they use a scandalous tune where they want to socially cross out the other.

I used to be a religious person -"by the book" kind of person- and then I started thinking about things, and I started modifying my way of life based on what I came to understand, rather than what I was "raised to be", and this puts me in the very uncomfortable shoes of religious friends opening up to me, cursing and criticizing an atheist -or someone simply not as religious as they are- thinking that I have the same views as them.

So this last Thursday one of those friends, asked me to explain to her "what does an atheist person believe in, and what makes them strong in this battle in life". I paused, for different reasons, first because I always sensed some kind of inferior treatment towards me from this specific person based on the fact that the "so sacred things" for them are not that sacred for me, Second because I felt lie there is plenty of other people who could answer the question, and there is no need for her to shield herself with me if she actually wanted to get the answer for her alleged question.

Most importantly, what disgusted me, was that the question was a result of a conversation this friend had with other girls in the faculty who present themselves as atheists, and their only argument was: we are not voting for Muslim Brotherhood candidates because they are going to draft a law the obliges girls to wear a uniform to university, and headscarf will be obligatory even for christian female students!

It is those shitheads who bring bad name for atheism, where an atheist is perceived as someone who is scared of wearing long sleeves.  

I know this is gonna sound cocky when I say it, but I am gonna say it anyway: I don't believe that it is acceptable for 20 years old people to go around saying: I am muslim and proud, or I am atheist and proud. Simply because they are toooo freaking young to have such an enormous question sorted out, and if I may add: it is even worse for the religious ones, because they are backed up by an entire culture, system, society that tells them that they are RIGHT, which makes it extremely hard for them to think one inch outside the box.

And to wrap this post up, and in spite of me not having to explain anything to anybody, but still I want to post this quotation from an Amin Maalouf book that simply describes what I believe in.

“لستُ من أتباع أي دين، ولا أشعر بالحاجة لأن أصبح كذلك

وموقفي من هذه المسألة غير مريح لا سيما وأنني لا أشعر بنفسي ملحدًا كذلك. لا أستطيع أن أؤمن بأن السماء فارغة، وبأنه لا يوجد بعد الموت سوى العدم. فماذا يوجد وراء ذلك؟ لا أدري. هل يوجد شيء ما؟ لا علم لي. أرجو ذلك، إنما لا أعرف؛ وأشعر بالريبة إزاء من يدعون المعرفة، سواء كانت أشكال يقينهم دينية أم ملحدة. 

إنني في منزلة بين الإيمان وعدم الإيمان مثلما أنا في منزلة بين وطنين، ألاطف هذا وألاطف ذاك، ولا أنتمي لأي منهما. لا أشعر بنفسي غير مؤمن إلا حين أستمع إلى عظة رجل دين؛ ففي كل عظة، وكل إشارة إلى كتاب مقدس، يتمرد عقلي، ويتشتت انتباهي، وتتمتم شفتاي لعنات. غير أني أرتعش في أعماقي حين أحضر مأتمًا علمانيًا، وتتملكني الرغبة بدندنة تراتيل سريانية، أو بيزنطية، أو حتى ترتيلة القربان المقدس القديمة التي يقال إنها من تأليف توما الأكويني. 

ذلك هو درب التيه الذي أسلكه في مجال الدين. وبالطبع، أسير فيه وحيدًا، بدون أن أتبع أحدًا، وبدون أن أدعو أحدًا لأن يتبعني 

التائهون - أمين معلوف 

Cast Away: Unacceptable!

Call me a teenager who has no sense of reality, but I find the end of "Cast Away" movie unacceptable.
Although the film was released 14 years ago, but I have never seen it before tonight. I had a general idea of how things are going to go in the movie, but I wonder how none of my friends who has seen it before me, never came to mention what happens between Tom Hanks and Helen Hunt.

Is it just me, or is it actually THAT important?
I loved how the movie went during the time he was stranded on the island, I believe that much could have been added to the scenario to give it more life and depth, I felt that a huge potential was wasted, because Tom Hanks did and incredible job and could have done an even better performance if there had been more details into it.

But all in all I liked and I was not as mad as the critic in The Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturereviews/10514113/Cast-Away-2000-original-Telegraph-review.html

But even that, did not make any mention of the ending, (Spoilers Alert) after 4 years of being stranded he came back to find his sweetheart married to another guy with a baby!!

He went to her house at night because he could not add one night to the pile of nights he waited to see her face again.

 For some reason I thought that she was going to leave her husband for him, my mother and grandmother gave the racist remark of "she might as well do it, their marriage is not as sacred as ours" so I had to reply (although I always prefer to keep my hidden agenda, well Hidden!): No no, it is not an "us" and "them" thingy, I would totally leave the man whom I conveniently married and go back to the love of my life" (Silence)

I can't yet finish this entry without bowing in respect for the last scene, he just stood at a crossroad and thought of the possibilities available ahead of him and the movie just ended. It gave me a clear feeling of vanity, that things (most probably) don't go as we want them to, and if we don't learn to enjoy the little moments of cosmic peace, then we will dwell in the pain of losing the great battles, which is in this case, Chuck losing his Kelly.

Finally Meeting The Naser

I must have known Naser for more than ten years, I am positive that it was some time between eighth and ninth grade.

We were both Majoobian, which I consider the biggest Jordanian social network, way before it became a "thing" and wayyy much before Facebook was invented (or was it? But I was too retarded to know how to deal with it?).

So I was in a cafe in Lwebde with Nafnaf, Ali and B-san and from across two tables I heard my name, and there he was, Naser!It turned out that he had a voice hehehe, all of those years I never phonetically imagined him.

I must be thankful to the dear internet (who just turned 25 years old) that turned technical strangers into real good old friends. I was THRILLEDDDDD

Peace and Lwebde (",)

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All The Way 

Thus Spoke Jerry Seinfeld

Read those words of wisdom of Jerry Seinfeld



See, each man and each woman actually does have an owner's manual. Nothing's written down anywhere, but the directions for operati on of an individual in a relationship are detailed and specific nonetheless. So when you start out with someone, you're essentially driving a strange car for the first time and none of the controls are labeled. So the wipers can come on at strange times, sometimes you stall. On top of that we've all met people with bad steering, no brakes, needs a muffler, headlights a little dim, too much in the trunk, not enough under the hood, prone to backfiring, won't turn over, and just plain out of gas. Which is why when people get ready to get married they so often seem to choose basic transportation. It's simple, it's reliable, and it gets you there. That's important on a long trip. 

*****

Men seem to flip around the television more than women. Men get that remote control in their hands, they don't even know what the hell they're not watching. You know we just keep going, "Rerun, that's stupid, he's stupid, go, go, go." "What are you watching?" "I don't care, I gotta keep going." "Who was that?" "I don't know what it was, doesn't matter, it's not your fault. I gotta keep going." "I think that's a documentary on your father." "Don't care, what else is on?" Women don't do this. Women will stop and go, "Well let me see what the show is, before I change the channel. Maybe we can nurture it, work with it, help it grow into something." Men don't do that. Because women nest and men hunt. That's why we watch TV differently.

The End of A Brave Phone and JU ID Card

Two Mondays ago I innocently went to JU Library's bathroom (who does not go "innocently" to the bathroom anyway?!) I had -sorry for the non-delicate language- a very pressing need to run to the bathroom, and as I was getting ready to leave I heard something fall and when I looked I saw my lovely Samsung Note 2 half drowning in the whole of the eastern toilet!!

You know that moment when you say: That can't be happening to me!! Those are the things that usually happen to "others"! My phone was covered in shit!!

I picked it up, without thinking about the huge disgust of going through shit, I wanted to save it.

It started turning on and off and it went mad. I turned it off, cleaned it with a paper towel and turned it on again, but No nothing. So I turned it off and decided to leave it for an hour or two maybe if it got dry that it might work again.

But nothing. I took it to the first shop I found (like rushing with a bleeding person into the first hospital you find). I went for it the next day and the guy said that he changed the mother board, but the screen was burned up and that I had to get it changed.

I gave it to my brother, and now we are in the process of finding a some how cheap screen, because when we asked around we found none cheaper than 140 Jd's!

What can I say about such an experience? I lost a good amount of money, I am going to lose even more, my phone now can't be sold for it has been opened and fumbled into, everybody says that it won't get back to normal, and now I had to go back to my old Motorla, I have no internet access, no reading applications, no radio channels and most importantly NO DICTIONARIES!

And to seal the deal, a couple of hours after I rushed my phone into the shop I discovered that my Jordan University's ID, the one that has helped me through the electronic gates for more than 7 years, 2 of them after I actually graduated has slipped into the bath hole and is lost for ever :(

I never thought I will lose it, it meant so much to me and I always kept it in good places because I always knew that if it gets lost it can't be replaced.

And whenever anyone asks "what happened to your phone" they always follow it with: What were you doing with your phone in the bathroom anyway.

On a side note: After being faceboo-less, now I am What'sApp - less and I feel socially concealed, and I got that going for me :)

Estoy Perdida!!

This is the screen I have been getting during the last 4 days each time I try to watch the Spanish Series "Aida".

It is written in a very funny way, but it is not funny!! I work sooo hard, and I come home terribly tired and I deserve to get my 50 minutes of Spanish humor.

Get it fixed pleaaaaaaaaaaase!!

Ps: Withdrawal symptoms detected :p

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.