Would you like to share a meal with us?
Sure, we're hungry!
We brought corn and other stuff..
Cool. Never had corn before, but it looks good. Turkey, corn, potatoes, pumpkin...good stuff.
Indeed. Let's eat.

* later ...*

Did you come to share another meal with us and repay us for being nice to you when you first arrived here?
Nope, this time we brought guns.
Why?
Because we want to live here now. And you guys are annoying us. * bam bam *

- the end -

Currently in love with this website: Johacom

Absolutely, positively wonderful. Love it.

Check it out: funny, political, religious, serious, weird, provoking, critical, hilarious.

Oh yeah.

Hmm.. so Italy won the World Cup . Better than France winning it, anyhow. What awful behavior Mr. Zidane exhibited today - I was so happy seeing him receive that red card and have to walk off in shame; how dumb to do something like that in your last game ever. I had no idea that France's Franck Ribery is Muslim until today! Subhanallah - I'm wondering if Portugal's Simao Sabrosa is Muslim; he had a tattoo that looked like it said الرحيم  on his left arm. I can't be bothered to look him up; plus, any good sources of info about him are in Portugese anyway which I regret to say I do not speak.

Yesterday we decided to experiment with some new cuisine; we had a 24 lb. box of fresh apricots on hand and some good lamb. A tasty Algerian/Moroccan tagine dish immediately came to mind. I know in the North African version of meat and fruit tagines you are supposed to used dried fruit, like dried apricots and prunes, but (one of) our Persian cook book(s) says that you can use fresh fruits so we did! And it was pretty good walhumdulilah. I am definitely making it again sometime, and will try other versions using other fruits inshallah.

Next order of business: currently reading the Complete Works of P.G. Wodehouse for the umpteenth time. It's a great book; the author is absolutely hilarious and not one story has failed to make me laugh at least five times.

Also currently missing AlgerianLass greatly. Technology really sucks sometimes.
Also currently wishing certain people would go online more often *hint hint WD* but Allahul musta3aan.

I recently found out that my great Aunt is a good letter-writer and enjoys exchanging letters every so often, so I've been writing to her. She lives out in Montana - 'out West', relative to us anyway. I'm not very familiar with that side of the family; I wonder how it would be to meet them... I can hardly even keep straight who's-who. I should draw myself a family tree sometime.

Erm... I knew I had something of importance to say but I cannot remember what it was. Which might bring into question its importance.... anyway...

I've been working on my Turkish - I can actually understand very simple sentences and it has been a very fun (albeit often frustrating) learning experience. I hope I can get much better inshallah. So far I have read about Oktay who skipped work to take care of Ayse who is sick - Oktay went shopping, stopped at the post office, then bought some medicine for Ayse at the eczane (pharmacy). Oktay also spoke to his friend Ahmet about Ayse being sick - in response, Ahmet visited Ayse and asked her how she was, wishing her good health and a speedy recovery after she told him she was "iyi değil" (not good). Later on in the course of the story, Ayse and Oktay were going out to the cinema, and were planning to meet Ahmet at a party later that night. Ayse and Oktay also went out to a restaurant, and ordered a meat dish, a grilled fish, two salads, a glass of red wine (rolls eyes) and some water. The waiter was very polite to them btw. Finally, I read about two friends discussing a bad vacation at Burdum where the weather was cold, windy, and rainy, but where the hotel was beautiful and new, and the sea was clean and beautiful. Yes, the same adjectives were used over and over, but that is to establish familiarity I suppose.

Useless enough post for you? Prolly. Oh well. "Culture, National Liberation, and Islam" coming soon iA.

And a shoutout to Umm_Ali for many reasons :-D .. JAK for all your comments sister, it is great to see you active in the blog-o-sphere once again!

- tamma bi3awn illah -

Blog inactivity due to overwhelming amount of scholarship essays that must be written. On time.

Please excuse.

Will be back soon insha'Allah.

Thinking about giving this blog a makeover too... we shall see, wallahu a3lam.

Righty, cheerio.

Oh and by the way, I was rooting for Trinidad and Tobago, against England. Why would I want England to get it? But they won. Go figure. When you gots the money for proper training and stuff, there's a high likelihood you'll do better in a match against a poor country, non?!

- To assist those livestock producers who have suffered financial losses due to predators and to assist these livestock producers in their predator management.

- To set a precedent and insure the guardian quality and superior performance of all llamas placed through the Program.

- To abolish the indiscriminate selling and use of unsuitable llamas being marketed as "guardians," and to monitor and screen all llamas used as potential guardians.

 

Sooo uhh..yeah. Get a guardian llama.

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Request for any kind soul out there: Does anyone have a free, downloadable Arabic version of "Paradise Now" (any format) ? Dubai moon took theirs down which caused me a certain degree of grief. Help me?

---------

Ya tayyibil galb 7akkam galbak ittayib...

Leeh tiba33ad ma3 innak dayim grayyib

~Meehad Hamad "Ya Tayyabal Galb"

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Summer is a very 'timesicky' time for me, as it probably is for many people. Haven't seen the family for two years, which makes me cry, but when I realize that others haven't seen their families for 6 or 7 years, or more, I .... am grateful.

 

Today I spoke to my Grandad on the phone; he's in Egypt right now. Can't live anywhere else permanently  because he only has Palestinian travel documents (watheeqah - no citizenship). Although it would be ideal if he could move to Jordan to live with my Aunts there, the Jordanian authorities would not let him. They would arrest him (an 81 year old man who can barely walk ), or would shut down and confiscate my uncle's business that would be sponsoring his visa. Yeah.

 

It's difficult to speak to him with a steady voice and no tears..I couldn't do it today.

I used to spend a lot of time with him just talking over coffee or tea, back when they were staying with us in the UAE; he would tell me about his youthful days in Palestine, prior to 1948. He took place in the '36 general strike, got shot various times, saw people killed and tortured, worked a variety of odd jobs starting when he was 7 years old to help support the family, taught himself to read and write by selling newspapers, and walked from Khalil to Cairo with a bullet in his leg to marry my Grandma. He also had a good fashion sense [still does :'( ], and has told me many times how to differentiate between a European and Arabian horse and saddle/reins used for each. All this, among many, many, other things. He's now an old man, who wishes more than anything to spend his last days among his children and grandkids. I pray to Allah that his desire will be fulfilled, both for his and my sake.  

 

He takes his coffee very strong and sweet, and I figured out the secret to making it for him just right, exactly the way he likes it. Start out by sweetening the water with three tablespoons of sugar in your bakraj, and after you've added the four or so tablespoons of coffee and all just dump in a few more shakes of sugar (and by shakes I mean a lot ) .. Don't bother tasting it because you'll probably get knocked out. Pour it in the finjaan and serve it, then bask in the praise "This girl knows how to make the best coffee...she is mumtazah" he would say and give me a hug and laugh. I would kiss his hand and head, then return to the kitchen to make normal coffee for the rest of us.

Many memories...

 

I miss him, my grandma, and the rest of the family very much. Allah yjma3na feehum 3ala khair...hakatha heeyal 7ayat.

 

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s0lo: Shoutout to you m'dear :) .. Thanks fer yer cool email and iA Ill respond as soon as possible. I actually did write a reply and saved it as a draft and now it has taken the liberty of disappearing :| . So I'll retype it inshallah !

 

Hullo.

Nothing until after my five finals and two final papers (neither of which are finished, one of which isn't even started).

No emails, blog posts, comments on other blog posts, minimal Facebook-ing (:P) , and so on...

Duaa is appreciated. As always.

Fi amaan illah...ilal liqaa'.. inshallah.

Longitudinal and transverse dunes

Longitudinal dunes, also called Seif dunes, elongate parallel to the prevailing wind, possibly caused by a larger dune having its smaller sides blown away. Seif dunes are sharp-crested and are common in the Sahara. They range up to 300 m (900 ft) in height and 300 km (200 mi) in length.

Seif dunes are thought to develop from barchans if a change of wind direction occurs. The new wind direction will lead to the development of a new wing and the overdevelopment of one of the original wings. If the prevailing wind then becomes dominant for a lengthy period of time the dune will revert to its barchan form, with one exaggerated wing. Should the strong wind then return the exaggerated wing will further extend so that eventually it will be supplied with sand when the prevailing wind returns. The wing will continue to grow under both wind conditions, thus producing a seif dune. On a seif dune the slip face develops on the side facing away from the strong wind, while the slip face of a barchan faces the direction of movement. In the sheltered troughs between highly developed seif dunes barchans may be formed because the wind is unidirectional.

A transverse dune is horizontal to the prevailing wind, probably caused by a steady buildup of sand on an already existing minuscule mound.

Source: Wikipedia .

Why is it that the best blog posts, or pieces of writing in general, happen to come to me so late at night when I should be going to bed (in order to get up for Fajr on time) ? Subhanallah.


"I don't have anything to write about".

Because my life is not a tragedy, a drama, a soap opera, from which I can pluck heartwrenching incidents out of my daily events and vent about them on here with the confidence that they will keep readers interested. The stuff I talk about from my own life is actually quite boring, and I good as heck know it : D !
Am I complaining because my life isn't interesting enough? Of course not.

What am I saying then? Several things actually:

1) It's way too late to be on here, seeing as that I have to get up early to go teach third-graders the difference between "haa'" and "taa' marbootah" .

2) The things that do worry me, the things that "keep me awake at night", the things I get frustrated about and feel the urge to blog about have very little to do with myself. (Well, in a very real yet seemingly roundabout way they do ). In other words, I cannot fill my blog entries with twisted stories of overbearing pain-in-the-neck parents, impossible-to-reach loves, deep dark secrets about friends, rumors and love dramas regarding people at school or work... I do not have the time for such things, which means that I do not get involved in such things, which in turn renders my social life quite uninteresting in that regard, at least in the usual way people might think of as interesting (and who is to define what interesting is versus what is not.. Could it not be that a very tranquil social life, with the occasional ups and downs, is not interesting by a different perspective? Yes.).

But at the end of the day, I believe most sane people, whether they are like me or are the type who prefer to place themselves in the midst of every social drama everywhere (or who are so unfortunate as to "end up" involved in everything), would agree that I come out on the winning side of this whole thing. The reasons for this are quite obvious, I believe.

Comments? Comment box, email, phone call, Facebook, Raslny message... just say something. Of use.