Jasmine

Our Jasmine minutes before I left

It is amazing how little things can trigger such an old series of memories.

Today after a thorough attack of home cleansing. I decided to burn some incense ( وشَّق ) which was brought from back home to enjoy its essance.
( I became expert in doing this without turning the fire alarm on ...lol... )

Of course the scene wouldn't be complete without a clear glass cup of green tea with mint and almond.

That's all what I need to fly back in time ... to land on our green garden back home...

Where I found myself realxing as a little child in my Grandma's soft lap , undre the Jasmine bush.

The small white delicate Jasmine flowers stare at me, alluring me and everyone else to pickt it, while my grandma braids my hair and tells me stories about the days which have gone by.
Peace

A dream come true

First let me share this poster with you.

Its about The last trend in the first world culture

Shoes are weapons of mass destruction

I always had this dream where I am looking and looking and looking for my shoes and can't find it. In some rare episodes of the dream I do find the pair. Sometimes it is beautiful and fit. Other times it just does the job, and save me from the embarrassment of walking barefooted in public. I never thought that this dream will come true.

The story is while I am studying at the computer lab, I usually spend hours and hours, just sitting in front of the computer, listening and watching lectures. This become my routine over a year now. During these long hours I have to do different maneuvers to keep myself relaxed. One of these is taking the yoga sitting position (with folding legs over the chair). Not doing yoga, just adapting its sitting position. Simply I can't tolerate my legs being dangled  in a vertical position for a long time. Even in the airplanes, I used to do this maneuver. But not on the national American airplanes, with its narrow constricted chairs, where you can easily touch your neighbor in any tiny attempts of movement. I did try to do it but wouldn't advice anyone to try it. That is another tale, I might tell it one day.

Anyway back to the main story, I don't need to say that when I was taking that comfort position I have to take off my shoes, and I usually push them away under the desktop table. Yesterday at the lab, I wanted to stretch out my leg muscles by walking around. So I get off my chair and slipped my feet over my shoes, or let's say over the place I imagined my shoes should be occupying.
But I missed it!!!

OK, I thought I must have pushed them aside by my chair. So I looked around.

But it was not there!!!

Turned my head upside down searching under the tables.

But it was not there !!!

I kneeled on four to get a better view.

But...

Yes, as you guessed.

IT WAS NOT THERE!!!

It just vanished!!!

OK, now what?!!!

I was standing in the middle of the lab with bare feet (not really bare, my shiny white socks was on).

Now, if I walked around with my bare foot, there is a possibility that someone would notice and point at me and burst out laughing, and everyone else would follow.

NO, no, no, Enlightened. That might happen in another place and at another time, but not on this place and at this particular time on planet earth.

In this lab everyone is squeezing his face in his computer screen and his/her whole concentration is there. Sometimes I feel that those screens sucking out the spirit of life from those poor bodies.
Anyway Even if by chance someone noticed anything he would pretend that he didn't notice anything (our lab is a collection of weirdooos including myself), so I happily excluded this possibility.

Now how am I going to reach home. Again, moving around in the street wouldn't be a big matter I have seen people walking around in the street with bare feet, not with a flip flop. That is an old fashioned. The new trend is flip flop for winter and bare foot for summer.

As I posted in the above picture

Shoes are now considered as weapons of mass destruction.

But Hello!!! we are in the spring with all the rain, this will not work.

How am I going to walk on the rainy Seattle wet streets barefooted?

Even if people didn't care, I might end up with a bad cold or at minimum some uncomfortable abrasions.

Then I am still not ready to adapt this new trend. Yes, I am good at pretending to adapt many things, but this new trend is not classified yet under my "many things."

Maybe the best idea is trying to pull out one of those weirdooo from the computer screen and asking him/her to buy me a new shoes from the nearest shoe store.

This picture taken last summer at the bus station. Told u it's normal.

All these thoughts passed across my mind in a Milli of a second. Of course deep inside I was pretty sure that my shoes are hidden somewhere by the Italian lady who was sitting in the opposite table facing me, because she is the only one who had an access to my shoes.

As I recall she is the only one who needed to go under her desktop table to UN-plug her laptop several minutes before she left.

So It is simple I just need to turn around few steps to look for my lovely shoes, and that's exactly what I did. I turned around to found my lovely shoes over her table.

Lady Italian, nice joke. But next time be brave and let me have the whole experience. Take my shoes away with you .

You know what my lady, I really feel sorry for you now, as u needed to reach that close to my shoes. I can't tolerate having a stinky one, but u risked that possibility when you held my shoes that close.

I always feel sorry for those security officers at American airports who scan people's shoes. What a job!!!

Be ready Lady Italian u triggered the fire!
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( By the way, for the history and the records the first picture was an advertisment for a comfort shoes. I exploited its meaning to fit my post.)

PS: Sorry for the long post, it seems that I am hungry for typing, hope u hungry enough for reading.

Ferrero Raffaello Massacre

Food have always been one of my sources for enjoyment and pleasure.

That have never been a problem,

till recently, when I discovered that food became one of my main stress relief strategy.

In the past using food as self-reward was not a problem.

First, because there wasn't much to reward myself for !

Second, I was burning everything right away.

So, basically there was no problem.

But things are not the same anymore.

Now, I am looking every day for something to reward myself for .

Let's say to be more precise every hour.

Ok, ok, I know.
This sounds stupid.

But this is one of my ways to beat the pain of expatriation and loneliness.

I tried to fight this bad habit, specially as I am not getting much time to burn out what I am eating. but it seems that my effort to fight this habit went in vain.

Whenever the wise voice begins to give advice and recommendations, about eating healthy, and stop eating chocolates and other unhealthy food. The other voice will exagerate everything and start to moan :

Come'on , expatriation, loneliness, hard study, and on top of this u want to add starvation. That is too much, that is unbearable.

The weeping continue till a piece of Lindt finds it's way to stop the cry.

Do I need to mention that the weeping voice always win ?

Anyway, as I put on top of my " TO DO LIST" : Extenction of eating as a stress relief strategy.

I decided that one way of fighting this stupid strategy is by exposing it to the public here. In the hope of getting some scolding words from my readers, that can shut off the crying voice, or at least tone it down.

..HELP ME, HELP MYSELF..

To make the picture clearer here I put a snapshot for a usual quiet study day.

Note that piece of Rafaello never touched.

The wise voice is on control in this picture.

And here where things go out of control.

Take a closer look.

And that was just the beginning of the attack!

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Like or u don't like !

Today ...

While my body was relaxing; after several hectic months of hard study,

my finger tips appeared to still have some energy.

It started to tap over the keyboard to come up with these words.

It seems that somebody has finally obeyed to Lebeeya's magnetic power !!!

The title was about the new blog template. Nice to read ur opnion dear reader.

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Google Palestine

Do u know that google started just in last Aug. to launch a Palestinian Domain... Google.PS .... Here it is, if u haven't checked it...

Click on this link

http://www.google.ps/

There is hope :)

Me , the bus driver, the bus fare, and the Hijab

Here in Puget sound area, the public transit introduced a new transportation cards that work for almost all bus companies, to make riding the bus more convenient.

As I am always do like to take advantages of new things, I purchased this card few months back. But I only started to use it this October, when I finded some time to read about how it works.

Without including too much details about how you can load it and use it.I will go directly to the story. When I rode my bus this evening the driver stopped me and my friend when we tapped our cards on the card reader. I glanced at the screen of the reader, but nothing was wrong, at least according to my experincein using it in the last 2 weeks.

But the driver has something else to say, and he started to explain that we should add additional 1$ because of so and so. He was stressing his words with confidence in a way that any one listening, and most of the bus was listening, would think either we were stupids or we were thieves .The bus driver is talking about the card, so he must be right. I got confused specially with people starting to pile up in a line behind us. The problem is that I don't carry cash. Why I would carry any if I don't need it. Anyway the driver didn't insist that we have to pay, he was explaining so in the next time we would know.
I explained to him what I know in short, but he refuted my explanation. And he started to get nervous and asked me to contact the office if I am not believing him.

We got on the bus, and now me who started to become nervous, that is bad, really bad, if not for us then for the scarf we put over our heads. I always feel my responsiblities are doubled for anything I do here in the west. for anything I do, it doesn't only reflect me. My actions also reflects the religion for which I carry an obvious symbole.

I started thinking how to solve this, only talking to myself as my friend sat far away from me. Coz the bus was almost full. I reviewed the events, I am pretty sure of my understanding of how this card works. Whenever I use something new, I have to know it well before using it.

I started discussing with myself

So, what should I do?

I have to discuss with the driver while I am getting off the bus. He has to know that I am right in a polite way, without making him nervous.

But how could you convince him?

We need a third party.

He can call his office. I see bus drivers always call the office when they have some issues on the bus.

But that if they have something like an emergency!!!

Hallow!! this is an emergency to me, I am fighting here for my headscarf, I am neither a stupid nor a thief.

And what if he proves that you are wrong ?

Then being a stupid Muslim is better than being a theif, coz Muslims should never be thieves.

Ok honey,calm down,.... then try to look for a dollar your face will look better just in case if he proves that u r wrong, you would put the Dollar he asked for.

I searched my backpack carefully but eagerly, and in one forgotten pocket in my bag, I found not only one, but two forgotten dollars.

Here we go.

It is starting to get better.

Now, be calm, realx, and talk politely, and try to ask for the third party. Try to convince him to call his office and they will explain everthing.

I prepared everything, myself , the sentences that I will say, the money ready in my hand, and breathed deeply while the bus was approaching my stop.

Few minutes before the bus stop as usual the driver announced the station in the speakers, and ....... no silence ... he is still talking ... he continued.......
please the two young ladies whom I talked with about the cards and the fares. If you please come get off from the front door, because I want to apologize from you. You were right, and I was wrong !!!

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A book hug!

I have been and will continue to be away from the blogsphere for a quite long time, or may be u will find me after few days blogging agian, I don't really know!!!

Alot of things have happened and other things are still happening in my life, I am not sure if I will be able to blog about it . I am not even sure why am I blogging right now .

May be coz I don't want to leave this period of my life just blank on my blog. I want to document it even by one short post. Or may be I am blogging coz I need to. Or may be coz I need people to remember me in their prayers, so plz anyone pass by here remember me in ur prayers.

The only thing which I am sure about is that the picture above explains to a great extent my condition in these days.

Inspite of the fact that Books are one of the source of my suffering during this period of my life; still books, books, and nothing but books; were the only thing which succeded in smoothing away some of the pain.

Come my dear book , come my precious come, hug me.