Charlie bit me, and it hurt.

Been hooked on Charlie for a while now. Aren't they cute?

If Charlie bites you, and in your peaceful (or lazy) nature, you decide not to take action, do you want your significant, or not so significant:) other, to defend you? In other words, do you value this interference into your life meant to stand up for you or do you see it as an act that sees you incapable of caring for yourself. Do you want your beau to be your knight in shining armor (hmmm. or your lady in a Joan of Arc armor?)?

update: I just heard that Dr. Ahmed Al-Rubie passed away. My condolences to his family and loved ones. My condolences actually go to everyone in Kuwait. His optimism and love of life have always been much admired. Rare to find, and maybe even idealistic, but certainly something to be missed.

A Stone in My Chest

Disturbed Stranger honored me with another one of those poignant pieces of writing. I leave you to enjoy (or be pained by) this piece:

A Stone in My Chest

There is a cold stone in my chest. I can feel it. Buried deep… ripping and tearing through my warm soft flesh. There is pain. No bodily pain…just mental pain… mental annoyance; my cognizant awareness of its existence inside me. Deep inside me. It cannot be removed, no surgery will rid me of it, no surgeon will agree to it. A curse. A burden. A burden I must carry with me to my grave… where a stone naturally belongs… where I belong. The pain it afflicts is on those closest to me, those who suffer the most. I cannot seem to help it. I cannot seem to want to help it. I do not seem to care… all symptoms of my disease. My sole disease… soul disease. There is no cure. I must coldly shudder off every shred of emotion as I slip into a circle of darkness…almost as dark as that stone.

Happy Holidays

Happy Liberation/Independence Days

Is it just me, or does patriotism diminish with age? My 13 year old came back from school in this:
demanding that flags should be on display this month. I personally think it's a bit tacky and in bad taste. But my mother obliged (as she always does with her grandkids) and we now have a huge flag hanging from the 2nd floor balcony all the way down to the 7osh, blocking the sun from my plants on the 1st floor. Patriotic acts destroying nature again.

There's a small stand selling KU cups, pens, shirts, and office sets in Shuwaikh's Students Bookshop. Not a bad idea and about time. Unfortunately they're not good quality. Here's my key chain and pens:

Thinking of switching from Aramex to DHL. Any input on that?

O Jerusalem

Evacuations. Concentration camps. Racial and ethnic segregation. That was my TV for today. Watching O Jerusalem and Snow Falling on Cedars in one day isn't good for the soul. Two movies about friends forced by politics to be enemies. Good movies but ones that gave me some sort of gloom. I leave you with the beautified version of Ben Gurion and Golda Meir from O Jerusalem.

Atonement

If lies are prettier than truths, would you still want the truth?

Plato banished the poets from his Utopia because they tell lies. Sidney brings them back because these lies paint a more beautiful truth. The funny thing is (not the DeGeneres' version) that Plato's banishment of liars was really more beautiful that Sidney's defense of them. The truth is more beautiful after all. Or is it?

Mona Lisa

School:

There comes a time, every term, when I have this sense of waiting anxiously for the final papers to arrive while simultaneously dreading the many P’s I have to assign for plagiarized papers, the many redundancies I read, and the pure loss of focus that is common in most papers. However, almost every term, there are a few papers that make the time spent on the other 30-40 papers worth my while. This year was no exception. Some students still surprise me by their ability to interrogate theoretical articles and work them within the folds of their literary analyses. So gratitude goes here to those few students who have made the long task of correcting papers quite enjoyable. The highlights this year were those papers on J.K. Rowling, Paulo Coelho, and Tsitsi Dangarembga.

Mysteries:

“All doubts about the identity of the Mona Lisa have been eliminated by a discovery by Dr. Armin Schlechter.” And once its mystery has been solved, its greatness is no wonder lessened. Why is it that we always need to find answers to problems only to discover that answering them takes all the magic out of life? Mysteries should remain mysteries. Otherwise, life would just be too dull.

And more mysteries:

Newspapers announced that Saturday exams are postponed till Tuesday. Since faculty members haven’t received any official word, I called to inquire, only to be informed that the director is in a meeting with the deans now (11 am today) to decide on it. We must be really technologically advanced when the newspaper, printed the night before, can predict the outcome of a meeting that was still ongoing during the day :)

A Tribute to Nouriya Al-Sabeeh

When she spoke, Nouriyah did wonders. She countered all Dr. Saad's false allegations with solid proof. Her presence of mind was something to be admired. Her ability to argue was something that Kuwaiti officials should emulate, especially since most of them lack the simplest ability to debate logically.

يعطيهم العافية شيخة وعنود على مساعدتهم للأخت نورية (يمكن أكون غلطانة بالأسماء) كانوا مستعدين بالأوراق المطلوبة بأسرع ما يمكن

Certain MP's, if it was left to them, would've burned that 12 year old girl on the stakes. We can have our own Salem here in Kuwait. The girl scribbled some nonsense on a school textbook, be it a religious studies textbook, and suddenly she's the talk of politicians.

من طرائف الجلسة سالفة القلب المكسور

والسكرتيرة المسكينة اللي غلطت بالنموذج سموها مزورة

وأحد النواب ابتدى كلامه ب"وقرن في بيوتكن" يعني أشكره انتقاده لنورية أسبابه واضحة وما لها شغل بكفاءتها أو حسن إدارتها للوزارة

It was an enjoyable session most of the time, in spite of the hunger and headache that began to seep on us towards the afternoon.

*Kuwait Times referred to her today as the Iron Lady. I don't know if that's gonna take its intended positive sense within Kuwaiti society.

On the beach

The beach in summer is an amazing place. To swim. To tan.
But the beach in winter is just breathtakingly exquisite.
Especially when you're at this pier that extends into the water, almost lost to the world.

Chris Rea - On the Beach

Scattered thoughts

In the process of moving to a new place, remodeling needs an effort on my part that I am not willing to make. Excited about moving closer to my family (that's absolutely funny if you know how close my current house is), but not so excited about the actual moving day. So I make my choices in a rush. This color's fine, this bathroom fixture's fine, this piece of furniture's fine, this wall's fine. Just get it done with.

My eldest brother just moved into his new house. His first house away from the family. While excited about their new home, I can't help but feel things changing. And I'm not sure I like the change. It isn't anything negative. It just feels like the beginning of a new type of life for them, and by extension, for the rest of their family: us. Not willing to completely let them go, our visits to their house extend longer than we plan. We seem to agree that there is a certain amount of comfort and relaxation during the time we spend there. We're making their new home our home somehow. At least I am. (I've long claimed a certain corner to be mine, and I am not joking about that)

Deciding to enjoy the weather, pushed to do so by an invisible book club member, I decided to take my book club to Shuwaikh Beach. The weather was enjoyable. Talk about the book was scanty. Leo the African seems too historical, and maybe too dense for my current book club members. They demand lighter books. But I am not anxious to take it a notch down. Thinking of dismantling this book club.

My eldest is coming home for a visit. It's his first year away from home. His first time to leave 'the nest'. Luckily we have the Eid vacation coming up just in time so I can spend time with him. Of course that is assuming he'd actually give his family any attention :)

Is culture officially dead in Kuwait?

الفهيد يرضخ لضغوط نيابية ويلغي اليوم الثقافي في الإدارية

Should we worry? Preparations are already under way for our English Day activities. Auditions started. Certain plays already approved.

My last post was about a cultural activity held by NCCAL, and about the scarcity of such activities in Kuwait. Now a simple student activity at the College of Business Administration is canceled, and I'm beginning to worry that our department activity might be the next target.

It seems Soug El-7amam hamsters and kittens are indeed as much culture as is allowed in this country.

A dream I had last night about losing a loved one is still haunting me. Why is it that emotions provoked by a matter of pure imagination stick to you like reality no matter how much you tell yourself it's just a dream?

رفيق علي أحمد

Lately I've been away from the cultural scene in Kuwait. Not that we actually have one in here, but I just used to tune in to more of these meager activities. Tonight, as I canceled a movie outing, I decided to make up for it by attending this monologue. Going to the theatre, I didn't really expect much. It's one of those activities organized by NCCAL, and although I am sometimes entertained by their choice of material, it's been a while since they brought something that really interested me.

That is until tonight. This is not one of those elaborately maintained shows. As with most monologues, this is a simple act that depends mostly on the actor himself. Rafik Ali Ahmad did a wonderful job entertaining his audience with a flare of comedy that hides behind it the dismal situation in Lebanon, among other tragedies (aging and its effect on men was a dominant theme).

Dinner at Le Notre after the show was the perfect ending to my night.

(An early trip to Soug El-7amam, in spite of a flat tire on the way there, was how my cultural experience started today :)

I'm too sleepy to read what I wrote. If you don't like, dont continue.
I'm also too lazy to add pictures. Use your imagination to fill them in. :)

Update: I just received a picture of a friend we made at Soug El-7amam.

Why I couldn't Mac

I'm now back to Windows. This is such an ugly interface. I miss my Mac.
Now let me list my reasons for going back, retreating, downgrading to Windows:
1. Though iWork, NeoOffice and other Mac programs have a more advanced looking interface, they lack a simple feature: You can not choose to automatically save a portion of the sheet every time you save the file. How am I to keep updating my students' grades?
2. Though Frontpage is becoming obsolete (or so every one is telling me), I was not able to find an easier to use publishing program that allows you to save your webpage on your harddrive and, again, to automatically save as information there is updated.
3. The edit feature in other programs conflict with the word programs my students send me. As such, I see mistakes in format that are not there in the original, Windows files created by my students.
4. Video-conferencing, though more advanced with iChat and Skype, does not work on Mac with Messenger. Most people still use Messenger.
5. networking Mac with Windows does not seem easy. I could not access other computers and once that was managed, I had trouble accessing the printer on my PC.

So now I'm a Windows person again, regretfully, unfortunately.

I hate Windows.I'm liking Jack Savoretti. Thank you Sou. Here's one of my favorites: Blackrain

بيان (أو جابرية - كيفكم) ... ملييييييييقة

القبس - اليوم - صفحة ٦٧

الوالد العزيز - المصحح اللغوي بالفطرة - كان لازم يعلق
المشكلة إن البيان صادر من مؤسسات تعليمية
بس يللا - نبلعها .... والا ما نبلعها؟

Leaving to Ohio, with a quick stop in Texas, next week. Taboon shay?

p.s. when did we start using maleeqa o halagah? new in our vocabulary, aren't they?

و بعد ب. س. مو عاجبني البيان

The Insignificant Somebody*

I woke up on a gloomy Monday morning with one side of my face pressed on the cold interior of a dumpster I called home. It was strewn with various possessions and a good smattering of rubbish. Pigeon feathers, apple cores and sweet wrappers littered the edges decoratively while old toys lay higgledy-piggledy among the tangled rags of worn-out clothes, and a mess of newspapers, partially covering me, sat in a puddle of light coming from a lonely, stray ray of sunlight. The rats of the night scurried off for cover while I, the dominator of the garbage heap, heaved myself on two weak legs, each the size of a slightly overgrown chopstick, to start a new day.

By midday business was booming. I had stationed myself near a famous café where most middle-class people would have breakfast before hurrying off to their diverse jobs. Numerous individuals took pity on me and spared me a few round coins and on rare occasions crumpled bank notes were sometimes whipped out. However a certain individual's picture stuck out as clear as glass in my mind, though it was not very pleasant. I had, unfortunately, chose the wrong day to walk up to a man who seemed extremely agitated, grinding his teeth as he stood there steaming. He looked up at me as I approached, his face was beaded with sweat although it was quite a chilly afternoon. He wiped his eyebrow with a white-gloved hand, pushing along as he did so, some of long greasy hair out of his face. A pair of thin spectacles sat upon his crooked nose, his nostrils flared at the sight of me. I extended my arm, without really expecting anything, to produce a chipped mug that was stained with dirt and gently rattled it. Without realizing what had hit me, a split second later the man had jumped to his feet, and had spat a relatively large amount of saliva in my direction, which hit me directly in the face and started dribbling downwards like cold, raw egg-white. He had then stalked off at a quick pace muttering furiously under his breath.

Night swam across the sky, as I huddled up in a corner, covering myself with filthy rags that had a sick grey tinge with striking resemblance to the colour of my unshaven and exhausted face. I rested my head on the window of the shop where I had decided to sleep. Minutes later, my head lolled over as I gave a huge grunt and my face was pressed against the window. The misty fug my breath had left on the window sparkled and reflected the glare of the orange street lamp, casting me into a world where I was not known, but just a ghost, just a nobody, just a beggar.

*story by Disturbed Stranger

forgive and forget? really?

I've been neglecting this blog lately. I used to be more of an avid blog keeper before, back when I was blogging incognito. But Kuwait is small, and now everyone knows everyone in blogger. To top it all, many of my readers are students of mine. So social decorum had to be kept if only for that purpose :)

But enough of that. Kaify. It's my blog. I can write whatever I want here. Personal and disgruntled writing is part of the reason I started a blog anyway. So to my dear readers, I implore you, what you read here is personal. I am indeed 'airing my laundry' here. And though you are privy to my blog airing of that laundry, don't be complete asses and take it out of blogger. And to my dear friends and family (and students?), if I lash out on you here, you are only allowed to lash back here. Schizophrenics have always fascinated me. And in light of that, I am inventing for myself a schizo personality here on blogger, separate from my real identity. Don't mix up the two.

Now that the lengthy intro has been dealt with (shda3wa kil hatha. Just get to the point already), we move to the topic of this post: forgiveness (quite a Ramadaani topic, won't you agree?)

Now watch this for a break (and animated rendition of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado":



I'm always haunted by my inability to forget injury. And it haunts me most when I find it in others. I can't accept it then.
يعني حلال علي وحرام على غيري؟

What if someone told you they forgive and forget (your injury to them), do you believe them? If I hold a grudge, why would I not expect it from others? If I hold a grudge, how can I understand other people's ability to let go?
كل يرى الناس بعين طبعه
And 6ab3ee is that I can't forget, even if I act as though I've forgiven.

I won't go as far as Montresor and burry my Fortunato alive in my wine-seller (come to think of it, I don't have a wine-celler. Will have to settle for a basement that is no basement at all), but I am known - if only to myself, a few friends, and the blog community :) - to hold grudges. I'm not totally proud it it. But it's human nature; my human nature. As such, I am not ashamed of it either. Of course this is blurred by my 'other' human nature: keeping pretenses. So if you ever cross my path, I'd be as good as Montresor in acting civil with you (but only to lure you into my cellar and bury you alive maybe?).

How's Ramadan treating you? Giving rise to any of your demons? Amazing what repression can do.

One more laish

Why are all Kuwaitis presented in our TV shows as these vulgar, hailag, difasha people? Constant portrayal of these vulgarities as the norm, even if meant to criticize such behavior, is promoting a behavioral pattern that is already in the rise here.
Working on my syllabi and other minor preparations for the term, I've been sitting on my *** (see!!! It's already rubbing off on me) for the last 3 hours with the TV on: 2 shows in AlWatan (Al-wazeera & 3ers Al-dam) and 1 in Dubai TV (Al-Kharraz). The result: here I am using *** in my blog. Point well-proven. Now let me move to the next point.


I just finished reading Middlesex, and here's my two-cents:
Middlesex is the story of a boy who was born a girl, or rather, born with his male parts 'tucked in' remaining un-noticed by the family's old doctor until the girl turns 14 and discovers she's a he.
Now aside from the interesting psychological and gender perplexities presented here, the novel presents a new look at Greek Americans, an ethnic category that I have so far escaped in my literature (Aside from the glimpse in the recent, hilarious My Big Fat Greek Wedding). But aside also from the informative nature of a novel that is both cultural and psychological, the author (same author for The Virgin Suicides. ٌٌٌYou might have seen the movie. Coppola's daughter directed it) manages to create a narrator whose voice is really captivating.
If those Kuwaiti shows leave you on the verge of craziness, pick up the book. I promise you similar juice (there's a brother/sister marriage in there to keep your perverted interest peeked :) Anyone here remembers the Flowers in the Attic series?)

ليشات رمضانية

ليش الصلال مو راضي ياخذ فلوس من بنته عشان دراسة بناته الباقين؟ يعني كرامته أهم من تعليم بناته؟
ليش عالية شعيب قاعدة تمثل؟ ملت من التدريس؟
ليش فيمتو بيتنا وايد حالي؟
ليش آنا ليلحين مو قادرة آضبط برنامج دريم ويفر على الوب سايت مالي؟
ليش فرح ما تحب اللحوم الحمرا؟ شايفة ألايف لما كانت صغيرة؟
ليش الكتب اللي طلبتها للكورس الأول ما وصلت لحد الحين؟
ليش الواحد مرات يحس بغلقة حزة المغرب؟
و أهم ليش فلسفية جننت قلوب العذارى و الغير عذارى: ليش الدياية عبرت الشارع؟

هذي مو فوازير رمضان. هذي ليشات رمضانية تراودني (حلوة هذي تراودني؟) وأنا ناطرة الفطور عشان مشتهية رهش.

وسلامتكم ومبارك عليكم الشهر

Segregation again...Diwaniya

Al-Onaizi: “men should always come first, then the woman.”

I didn't hear this one myself when I watched the re-run of Dr. Ghabra's Diwaniya yesterday. I wasn't able to stay tuned as Al-Onaizi kept going around in circles, failing to answer questions directly, and swaying away from the main topic (If this was one of the papers my students present, I'd have OFF-POINT written all over the pages)
Did he actually say men should come first? or is this taken out of contest?

School's starting soon, and segregation will again present itself as a hurdle in assigning classes to teachers. I just had to add a boys only class to our schedule to cater for the need of probably 2 or 3 students when I have other classes that hold 10 students over the limit with some still on the waiting list. In a department that is predominantly female, it becomes almost impossible to maintain segregation. Our literature male students are even fewer in number than our linguistics ones which means that many of them have to spend more years in college that they should just to be able to find the classes they need.

As we promote classroom discussions and student interaction in the knowledge-learning process, classes of 2-3 students seem to be a barrier hard to cross. Small classrooms are usually easier to handle in terms of discussions, with everyone given the chance to participate. But 2-3 students is not a classroom. It's private tutoring. And the rules for private tutoring do not hold for classroom discussions that should promote an interactive, debate-based discussion. 2-3 student classrooms means teachers have to resort to lecturing, so we're back to students listening, teachers speaking, exams being proof of the students ability to memorize what the teachers says in class.

So much for liberal/creative thinking.

Coming soon ...

... to a blog near you

Check it out ...

Howdy

I am sitting in the porch, waiting for my chicken to cook so we can eat. Waiting for time to pass so we can go to the movies. It’s humid after the rain. We’re having two more days of rain according to the weather forecast so my mornings by the pool have to be postponed.
And as I lazily sit here killing time, I decide it’s time to post something here.

My first-born “ice-ice-baby-boy” leaves the nest for the first time. I accompany him to the place he will call home for the next four years. And as I launch him into his new life, as I help him prepare his new home and get familiar with his new school, I am left with some not-so-typical emotions.
I am not worried about him. I am not worried about what might happen as he lives on his own in a place miles and miles away from home. I am not worried about missing him. My joy at seeing him reach this stage overshadows any negative feelings that might come with his approaching vacant spot in my house. I am happy for him.

I am often asked how I feel about this, with the expected answer being something along the lines of “I can’t believe my boy is leaving the house, living on his own. I am gonna miss him so much. I don’t know how I can handle his absence from the house and I am so worried about leaving him to tend for himself.”
And occasionally, I fake such answer (I am, when the occasion demands, quite good at...hmmmm...faking it?)
But the truth of the situation is that I am simply happy for him, with no worries whatsoever (Overconfidence that I raised him well enough to be up for the challenge? Lack of proper motherly emotions? Inability to come to grips with the actual situation? It didn’t hit me yet?)

So for now, my worries now are 2:
1. Chicken here is so damn huge, will it cook in time? (why did I decide to cook tonight? What’s wrong with the restaurant food we’ve been munching at for the past 10 days? Playing mother?)
2. I hope I don’t get bored out of my mind as the boys and I go watch Superbad tonight. (Another fake attempt to be motherly maybe?)

OK enough of that. I am not a fake. My mere acknowledgment of the fact that I ‘fake’ it is proof that I am a very very honest person ;)

Ciao y’all.