I have to give these actors credit. They continued acting in spite of the rain. It is us, mortal subjects, who were bothered by it. Meryl Streep, needless to say, was amazingly energetic, rolling around in the mud, jumping and singing on stage. I fell in love with her all over again.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Meryl Streep in Central Park
I have to give these actors credit. They continued acting in spite of the rain. It is us, mortal subjects, who were bothered by it. Meryl Streep, needless to say, was amazingly energetic, rolling around in the mud, jumping and singing on stage. I fell in love with her all over again.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Manhattan: A City of Architecture
Flatiron Building
St. Patrick's Cathedral
NY Public Library
Building from Will&Grace
Carrie Bradshaw's from Sex and the City (Perry St.)
Apple Store
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Brooklyn Bridge
NY Stock Exchange
WTC (what used to be)
This post is inspired by my visit to the Zaha Hadid exhibition at the Guggenheim's yesterday.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Chicago feat. Usher
Sorry if I haven't been replying to your comments on my previous posts.
Thanks for all who wished me a happy stay.
mini r. apollo theatre, not yet. i packed some mini replicas of some paintings from the metro. good enough?
ayya. i read your central park poem when you first published it and i thought it was quite a coincidence, or maybe القلوب عند بعضيها
white wings. mariah is half naked coz she can :P, big sale at BCBG, and here's one modern art example: Robert Rauschenberg's The Tower (1957)
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Sunday, August 20, 2006
I am such a Dory ...
Here's my Dory story:
I packed. Said my goodbyes to some. Went back home for a nap before my flight scheduled for tonight.
I double-check the ticket to confirm just one more time ... and lo and behold ... my flight is scheduled for tomorrow, not today.
Now tell me, isn't that the clumsiest thing you have ever heard?
I think my last post is early signs of my dory-ism. A comment meant to appear in another blog, somehow became a post in my blog!!! I don't understand how that happened. But hey ... I'm Dory :/
If I wasn't always blessed with this absentminded and forgetful nature, I'd blame it on nearing my big 4-0. But alas, I can't even blame my dory-ism on age.
But then again, I can also blame it on giving myself very little time between one flight and another, getting sick the last day on my previous trip, having to do some unpleasant legal errands today, worrying about the kids' school starting while I'm gone (with my eldest a senior this year), among a list of other minor disturbances that I have been having lately. Egh, when did life become so complicated?
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Chinese Film Week
We arrived a little before 7. The room was half full at that time, mostly Chinese (or East-Asians). More people started filling in and we continued waiting for the film to begin, or for someone to explain to us the reason for the delay. Organizers were nowhere to be found, not even to assist the newcomers into finding the few empty seats.
7:35 the show begins. Or so we thought. The presenter speaks in Arabic for an audience mostly made of non-Arabs. Then he translates his words to English. 6alib Arefa3ee speaks for another 5 or 10 minutes, no translation follows, then manager of cinema club, whose name I forgot, speaks for another 5 minutes. Presenter translates his speech into English. Chinese ambassador (or was it cultural attache?) speaks for yet another 5 minutes, with his speech interrupted occasionally by the cutest Arabic translation ever in an accent I almost never heard (Chinese reading Arabic amazes me. Why can't I read Chinese?). When that's done, we assume it's time for the movie. But no. Presenter speaks again.
At this time, 8 pm already, my sister and I decide to leave ... coz ... are you kidding me? You start late. You don't apologize for making your audience wait 35 minutes. Then you give your audience a sarcastic remark about their mobiles providing background music, totally inappropriate and a little bit demeaning. Regardless of the audience's lack of consideration in keeping their mobiles on, it is uncalled for when the presenter addresses this issue in such a sarcastic tone. Just tell our audience to please turn their mobiles off. I mean they've been patiently waiting for you for 35 minutes. Give them some courtesy.
So anyway, if you happened to watch the movie, fill me in :)
Details are found here.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
لبيروت




لبيروت

من قلبي سلامٌ لبيروت
و قُبلٌ للبحر و البيوتلصخرةٍ
كأنها
وجه بحارٍ قديم

Sunday, July 16, 2006
To Meriam wherever she may be.
I think I knew Remi Bandali through Meriam. I'd leave it to N to correct me. She'd remember better. Listen here.
update: my bro bugs me about my spelling mistakes in these posts. so i had to edit. corrections, as per my fashion with student papers, are made in red.
ما عندي سالفة
Veni, Vidi, but not Vici
Too many white spots that need to be red-ed. Why red? I simply visited the country. I didn't invade it. I didn't kill anyone. Well, maybe a few fish, chicken and cows. But other than that I didn't kill.
Within the U.S.
create your own visited states map
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Too noisy to work ...
Saoud's rendition of Mansfield's "Miss Brill" Sara's rendition of Head's "The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses"
Hussain's rendition of Hemingway's "Soldier's Home"
After each member of the group presented their part, he started wrapping up by saying that Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is considered the best work of literature at the age, at which time she jumped at him to say that she strongly disagrees on that. Being as we have often seen brother and sister competing in class, we thought they were actually having an argument within their group, especially after she pointed out that he, due to his disability, being short, fails to appreciate Swift's story about giants. It turns out this play was part of their presentation. Thank you S & S for livening up our summer course with your act.
She approached me after class to ask if her participation is a little over the top. I reluctantly answered her by admitting that she does have a habit of interrupting people in the middle of their sentences all the time. At which point, she promised to be careful about this next time and wait for me to call on her in order to give the other members in class the chance to talk as well. Today A proved that she cannot help being A :)
I occasionally stay in the office to get some work done. But it seems that as long as my neighbor is this adorably noisy colleague, I can never get any work done. His voice is so loud that you can hear him speak from across the building. This post goes for Dr. H, my neighbour.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
لنسمعهم صوتنا
نبي مجلس برئاسة وطنية تمثل الشعب ولا تمثل عليه
وهم نبيها خمسة
لنسمعهم صوتنا كما أسمعناهم من قبل
ساحة الإرادة - مقابل مجلس الأمة
الساعة الثامنة والنصف مساء
البس البرتقالي واحضر
Friday, June 30, 2006
3 wise monkeys
When we went into the Criminal Investigations Building this last Wednesday the 21st of June we were met everywhere with this statue.Now I know what it means exactly.
The 3 deaf, blind and mute monkeys are indeed very very smart. So smart they're gonna lose this country to other monkeys.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
جمعية الشفافية الكويتية
تدعو جمعية الشفافية الكويتية الراغبين بالتطوع للمشاركة في مراقبة إنتخابات مجلس الامة يوم 29/6/2006 إلى التسجيل لديها على ان تقدم لهم دورة تدريبية بعنوان (المراقب الإنتخابي) للخبير الدستوري د. محمد المقاطع و سيمنح المشاركون شهادة مراقب إنتخابي.
عنوان جمعية الشفافية الكويتية
اليرموك ق4 مقابل شارع المطار
هاتف : 5358901
5358902
الدعوة موصولة الى مدونين الكويت خاصة ان تساعدوا في نشر الدعوة ولنتصدى بها الفساد ولنكن درعا نحمي إرادة الشعب من التزوير. ان الامل كبير
Friday, June 23, 2006
Saturday, June 17, 2006
ripped to pieces
Posters in Surra, scattered around, not too many. They say something like "We can't be bought by the Dinar," and "We're not for sale" (rough translation).
Now who would rip such posters?
Toni Morrison: Sula. 1973
Two girls, raised in two different matriarchal families, finally realize that the bond that unites them as friends is stronger than other societal bonds that kept them apart.
Eva’s husband walks out on her leaving her with two girls and a boy. Her house becomes a place where many seek shelter. But the house lacks proper order, an attribute Morrison reserves for those who are not willing to allow a space for differences among people. As part of her illogical, disorderly fashion, Eva takes in 3 boys and calls them all Dewey, against everyone’s quizzical inquiry as to how to distinguish between the 3. Her daughter Hannah also loses her own husband when their daughter Sula is only 3, leaving Sula to be raised in an a-typical matriarchal family.
Helene Wright is raised by her grandmother away from the Creole whore who gave birth to her. When Helene marries a seaman who is constantly away and bears her daughter Nel, she raises her in such an orderly fashion that makes this matriarchal family the opposite of that of Sula.
It is this opposition that joins the two girls and leads to a friendship that becomes the main focus of the novel, even when Morrison crowds her novels with many more interesting characters and stories:
Eva herself kills her own son when his war trauma leaves him too attached to his mother, but then throws herself out the second floor window onto her burning daughter in an attempt to save her life.
Sula sees her own mother burning but doesn’t move to save her, partly because of hearing her mother in an earlier occasion admit that she loves, but does not like Sula, her daughter.
There is also Shadrack, the shellshock veteran who celebrates National Suicide Day every year, and who finally leads some townfolks into a tunnel, and accidentally, to their death.
Another one of Toni Morrison’s successes. If you haven’t touched a Morrison yet, what are you waiting for?
The old woman is keenly aware that no intellectual mercenary, nor insatiable dictator, no paid-for politician or demagogue; no counterfeit journalist would be persuaded by her thoughts. Toni Morrison. Nobel Lecture.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
update on shuroq
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
My blood is boiling
Distributing flyers with a message against buying and selling votes ended in one of the most aggravating and disturbing conversations ever when 2 men directly offered us money to shut up and/or sell our voices.
I will leave Shuroq to fill you in on the details. She's a more prolific writer with a better memory. And she has already been threatened to publish something by noon tomorrow or else.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eye. 1970
This is how 9 years old Claudia begins telling us the story of Pecola that she and her sister Frieda, 10, were witness to. In this story, Morrison takes her readers into the world as seen in the eyes of two black girls whose fortune is only a little better than the distressed Pecola. Pecola, influenced by the seemingly happy life displayed on the screen of this pretty blond with blue eyes, decides that what happened to her could be prevented if she had Shirley Temple’s blue eyes:
It had occurred to Pecula … that if her eyes … were different, … she herself would be different. If she looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove. Maybe they’d say, “Why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn’t do bad things in front of those pretty eyes.” …Each night, without fail, she prayed for blue eyes.
But Pecola is not that lucky. Her eyes aren’t blue. And her father Cholly rapes her. And her mother Mrs. Breedlove breeds no love on the girl.
So it was.
A little black girl years for the blue eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment.
We saw her sometimes, Frieda and I—after the baby came too soon and died. After the gossip and the slow wagging of heads. She was sad to see. Grown people looked away; children, those who were not frightened by her, laughed outright.
…
All of us—all who knew her—felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness.
…
She, however, stepped over into madness, a madness which protected her from us simply because it bored us in the end.
It is only when Claudia grows older that she realizes that the town and she herself were wrong when they acquiesce to life’s unjust treatment to one of their own, saying the victim has no right to live.
I love Morrison’s multiple narrators. I love her refusal to allow her readers to classify good and evil. I love the fluidity of her style. But most of all, I love this, her first novel, and to me, the most gripping of all her 8 novels.
My aim is to begin some sort of a book review here. Not a very typical one, just my own thoughts and observations of a few of my favorites books. Toni Morrison being my favorite author, I will begin with this, then follow with the rest of her 8 novels before I move on to other writers.
That, my dear reader, is the plan. But I am generally not one to follow through with her plans :)
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
الهارون & النيباري
Monday, May 29, 2006
Vote for Dad
مرشح المنبر الديمقراطي الكويتي عن الدائرة العاشرة

Monday, May 22, 2006
Away from politics
Today is the last day of class, the worst day of the year for me. I hate saying goodbye to students. Every semester I get to know a number of students. Some are old students from my days as a school teacher. Some are interestingly bold and original in their way of thinking. Some are a raging volcano of emotions and thoughts under a quiet facade. Some are still learning to gain a voice. Some are struggling with balancing family and school. Some I enjoy teasing and some take pleasure in teasing me. But all are such a pleasure to teach and an honor to know. To my 475 class and to those who graduated before, I dedicate this post.
Away from politics 2:
The maid I borrow from my sister twice a week to clean the house has to go back home. After finding a suitable candidate, I went to apply for her visa armed with the necessary papers only to be told that they need a recent divorce paper, not more than 6 months old. What's the logic behind this? 6 months? I'd understand, or can pretend to understand, 3 months, as a woman cannot remarry within three months of her divorce. But 6? What would happen in 6 months that can't happen in 3?
Away from politics 3:
I was supposed to join Walk the World with my friend yesterday. She couldn't take the day off so I decided not to go alone. But later on I decided to go to release some stress (not caused by the latest political events but by personal matters). Is it still supporting Child Hunger is my cause was a fresh walk on the beach for exercise and for stress release?
I leave you with pictures of the event:


وهم نبيها خمسة
Friday, May 19, 2006
Kuwait Political Database
I just spent the last hour surfing through the various levels of information presented there. I found out that there are 44 registered voters sharing my family's last name, 4 of whom live in Jabber :)
التجمع القادم
وتستمر الإرادة
بمشاركة نواب الأمة .. نلتقي معاً في ساحة الإرادة
أمام مجلس الأمة - شارع الخليج العربي
يوم الجمعة 19 مايو - الساعة الثامنة مساء
Friday, May 12, 2006
هم نبيها 5

Let's not give in now. Sunday at 6. See you all there facing the Parliament.
I'm repeating the call of my fellow bloggers. It's time to make a stand. It's no longer about 5 or 10 or even 25. It's Kuwaitis showing they care about their country, showing they are involved, showing they are politically aware, or at least, politically interested in what's going on around them.
Please please please be there. Don't be passive. Don't say it's pointless. Don't say one person won't make a difference. If you care even a little bit about making this a better place to live in, start now. What harm would come to you? A few hours gathering with a bunch of devoted, interesting, fun, energetic and patriotic group of people (blogville is filled with those, as I have come to find out) can do you more good than harm.
Sunday, 6 pm, Facing the Parliament: See you there.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Let them eat cake!!!

Isn't this similar? I don't write political posts. This isn't politics. I write about food. So here's food for thought:
Isn't approving 10 when you ask for 5 similar to suggesting cake when you ask for bread?
Well, not quite. Offering cake is an indication of ignorance. Offering 10 is one of not giving a damn. Or is it not so?
Friday, May 05, 2006
5 for Kuwait
Zaydoun: His was the first orange shirt I saw.
Papillona: Lovely and beautiful but feeling a little hot tonight.
Nunu: I seem to have confused you with noony (Judy Abbot currently I believe). Nice meeting you nevertheless.
iDip: Spotted through a women's plot to find the mysterious iDip.
Ayya: Meeting you made my night. I felt like a teenager meeting her idol.
The Stallion: Who thought we were gathered to celebrate cinqo de mayo :)
Walladah: Another one of my idols. To see that a real person exists behind those poetic visions is always baffling.
Nibaq: Nice meeting you again. Didn't have the chance to chat this time.
Seeing the enthusiam behind this rally tonight made me feel very optimistic. I'm hoping for the best.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Crash
My Lexy got hurt today :(Here’s a sketch. I’m gray. He’s pink.

1:15: I call 777 to report it
1:18: Faiha Police Station calls to get details. They ask that I drive to Faiha. I ask: “But shouldn’t you come over to sketch the accident”. He answers: “It’s Ok. You come to Faiha PS we’ll figure it out.” I decide a genius works there so I relent. Driver of second car, however, refuses to budge till his boss comes. I call Faiha PS to tell them. They say: “Who was it you hit? An Indian?” I flip and say what the hell does that got to do with it? He says they always crash!!! He says let me talk to him. he does. Then I tell him forget it dude. You come inspect scene of accident. He agrees after I seem to remind him of his job.
1:40 He comes. He sketches. I follow to Faiha PS to leave car there as he said he’d call around 5 when inspector’s there so report can be written.
5:06: He calls. I head there with brother. At Faiha PS he tells us to photocopy license and registration. Naturally they don’t have this service at PS so we head out to nearby copy center. We make copies. We return to PS. He takes copies. Puts together with his sketch. Tells us to head to Kuwait City PS (Now why couldn’t he have done that earlier when we headed to PS to leave car there? It’s a mystery my dear readers. But we are not to question authority)
6:00 (or thereabouts) We arrive at Kuwait City PS. After 30 minutes wait, we meet inspector. After asking the other driver about what happened, inspector asks me: “Is the car in your name?” I say: “Yes”. Inspector/genius has car registration with my name in his hand while asking question. Next question: “What’s your address?” I give address. Then our noble inspector turns to my brother and asks “What’s your phone number?” My brother gives him his number refraining from making an obvious comment here, but couldn’t completely hold himself when inspector asks me to sign and wonders “Shouldn’t I sign since you took my number?”
Home and in bed. But worried about my baby sleeping all alone in an unknown area. Only soothed by the fact that my 2 other, not-so-baby babies are also not home. So I'm home alone. No kids. No car. Just me, myself and my Sony.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
You know you're old when ...
When I was younger, I loooooved staying in my room all by myself. I mean what's not to love? I had my books. I didn't need to acommodate anyone else. It was time for me and me only. And what better company can there be?
Up till very recently, I loved being alone. Ba3ad shasawee I'm a hermit by nature. Utterly anti-social. I'm the boring one you find sitting quietly in social gatherings. The one who can never start a conversation and when addressed responds briefly. So quiet and withdrawn that people often mistake my inability to mingle as excessive pride "shayfa roo7ha."
But lately, maybe due to the fact that I live in a house with two boys who are rarely home themselves, I get bored staying home alone. It's too quiet. I think I need noise in my life. Maybe staying alone in my room before was doable because the house was always noisy and you don't get this sense of being alone.
Or maybe ...
maybe ...
maybe ...
Dare I say it?
maybe ...
... it's a sign of getting old :)










