Is Seattle really the rainy city?

Nothing can help like a breath of a fresh slight breeze, on a quiet beach, when someone's nerves are on the edge...

It seems that this space of mine has been abandoned lately. I thought today that it merits some attention. To tell that time shortage was the cause for this desertion, wouldn't be entirely accurate. Writing was always and will continue to be a sort of like breathing to me. So let's say that I'm either getting other ways to respire, or I'm not giving myself the room to breathe properly. Anyway whichever is the truth; here I'm apologizing for the faithful visitors of this page, and trying to rebuild the "rapport" I once had with this corner of mine.

A lot of things are happening lately; their rhythms sometimes seem to be more rapid than what I used to be capable to follow. And I dropped off the beats a couple of time, but I managed to stand up and harmonize with the upcoming beats of the next rhyme.

I have joined the school Journal lately and participated in one edition. It is not a serious writing, just for fun, and I'm enjoying it. However I'm not sure that I can continue in it, for it needs some sort of commitment. And I'm the queen of "disavowal" when it comes to things that I do for fun, so let's just wait and see.

The Journal club is really good place to unwind from the overwhelming study atmosphere that I started lately. It's a self-study program in which you are required to spend about 6 hours a day, for a period of 7 to 9 months; these hours are just the requirement. In fact I need much more than this to really cover the materials on time. This was not a surprise for me, I already know about this before I came here; though things feel different when you start it. People have always been the main source of motivations for my work and study; unfortunately in this program I am trapped in my desk alone, stuck just with my books and DVDs. Of course there are people studying in the same lab, but they gave you the impression of being unapproachable, they either seem to be haughty or dead. May be I look the same! but I'm not aware of it!

Yet, this was just my first few days, I am sure I will have a different opinion in a couple of weeks…at least I hope so.

Last but not least, about these pictures, which as it's evident weren't captured in a perfect time, no sunset (my favorite moment), or sunrise (my second favorite time); for the reason that it wasn't taken on a planned trip. The story is that last week I had a test. And on the noon and the evening before the test day, I don't usually study. Therefore to loosen up my stretched nerves, and to lighten up the stress, I went out for a walk in the vicinity, and capriciously I wind up taking a bus to its last stop. Of course, completely aware of where it was going -thankfully I still have a sane thinking- and I end up rewarding myself with some free moments of leisure.

That's all for today.
Thank you.
Hope You Have Enjoyed This Walk With Me
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STOP

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Take a deep breath...

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Listen...

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Listen carefully...

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What do you hear?
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…
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I hear
The dryer's machine hums.
A car's engine rumbles while it passes in the nearby street.
A tapping steps, most probably of a high heel shoes, a person walking in the passageway underneath my window.
What else?
A sigh from ..."me"
There are some other unrecognizable sounds that I can feel, but it's hard for me to describe in words.
Ah!!!

I almost forgot…The clicking of the keyboard bottons while I am typing these words.

...
So...stop for a moment and tell us or just just keep it for yourself…

What do you hear?

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We will not go down

I didn't plan to post anything about what is going on recently, but I couldn't resist sharing this one.

WE WILL NOT GO DOWN

(Song for Gaza)

(Composed by Michael Heart)

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A blinding flash of white light

Lit up the sky over Gaza tonight

People running for cover

Not knowing whether they’re dead or alive

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They came with their tanks and their planes

With ravaging fiery flames

And nothing remains

Just a voice rising up in the smoky haze

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We will not go down

In the night, without a fight

You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools

But our spirit will never die

We will not go down

In Gaza tonight

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Women and children alike

Murdered and massacred night after night

While the so-called leaders of countries afar

Debated on who’s wrong or right

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But their powerless words were in vain

And the bombs fell down like acid rain

But through the tears and the blood and the pain

You can still hear that voice through the smoky haze

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We will not go down

In the night, without a fight

You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools

But our spirit will never die

We will not go down

In Gaza tonight

A morning stroll and my miraculous story

A squirrel wishing me good morning:

my endless road

my favourite tree at the park


I don't know what they call this in English, but in arabic it is called Za3ror Sanfary زعرور سنفري
Okey, I really don't know what they call this neither in English, nor in Arabic

Snooow !!!


a closer view for my tree


Here is my miraculous story:
I don't know exactly what happened? may be the touch of the snow, the freezing temperature, pelting my friends with snowballs and swinging on the swing at the park, the peaceful morning stroll in the wild nature, being abroad , or may be all these together worked to take my mind back to my ancient childhood ... and whenever those memories pass, it is inevitable for the picture of my favorite friend's face, to pop up on the screen ...

Yes, SEKAB the girl which I talked about her once before, here in this post. At that time I never imagined that after just few months I will write another whole post about her.

I always believed that nothing is impossible in this life, and what happened with me was just another evidence piled up to strengthen this belief.

More than twenty years passed from the last time we were together in Hungary, and since then we never got the chance to be in contact, by any means.
Few days back while I was purposelessly browsing the internet just to distract myself from the boring study, and with all those memories which was triggered by the snow, it suddenly dawned on me to google her name.I tried many possible English spellings for her name, and I ended up with few facebook profiles, and here is the rest of the story :

Enlightened Spirit

December 12 at 8:04pm

I don't know if I am knocking the right door or not, but it worth a try. I have a childhood friend since my days in Hungary her name is Sekab ***** *****. If I am in the right direction, and u r Sekab, I would like to catch up with u. Waiting eagerly for ur answer.I will tell u all my personal information , and will show u pictures if u r really Sekab which I am looking for.Salaam

Sekab:

December 15 at 4:30am

yes its me Sekab **** *****, can u at least give me a name? I had so many friends there so I need to know who r u?

Enlightened Spirit

December 15 at 7:37am

Oh my God , this facaebook is Great I am E**** E******, ur classmate from 2nd grade primary school to the 6th grade primary school, I think we were more than classmate.I wonder if u still remember me :) 22 years passed that is unbelievable, isn't it ?

Sekab
December 19 at 9:22am
ohhhhhhhhhhhh myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy goddddddddddddddddddd E**** ,the last person i was expecting it to be is u since its been such a long time ,we used to sit on the same bench and ur mom was a teacher and all ur brothers and sisters names starts with the letter (A) in arabic right ???? u were always the first of the class and i used to be the second listen pls stay in touch ,i moved to a new house and i do not have internet connection yet so i might be late with my replys so do not worry ,tell me more about ur self and what r u up to these days?

Those were the messages which we exchanged through facebook in the last few days .
Told you ;)

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE

Eid Adha Mubarek

Although in this time of the year and in this particular place of the planet earth, the weather is supposed to be typical northwest cloudy rainy kind of weather, we were blessed that the bashful sun was generous enough to let us enjoy some of her beautiful shiny rays.

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This is the place where Eid Aladha prayer was held today's morning at Lynnwood, Washington.

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We arrived early and I thought this palce is too big for us, but for my surprise as the time went on the place was overcrowded, and turned to be too small for us, specially the place which was prepared for women, many of them hardly found a place to stand for the prayer.

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Thank you for all of you who remebered me in this day by any mean phone call, email, offline messages, facebook or blogger comments, or even if I just passed by in your thoughts .
For you in specific, and for anyone else pass here by chance, accept my warmest greetings
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Eid Mubark
may the guidence and blessings of Allah always be with you and your family...

No comment, I need yours though!

I found this on my email tonight:
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كل عام وانتم بخير

Dear Brothers & Sisters:

The Libyan Association of the Northwest announces its عيد ألاضحى gathering اعاده الله علينا بالخير والصحة والسعادة ... please plan on attending our festivities on Saturday, December 13th, 2008.

Location:
******** ******* ******
***** ******* **
*******, *******

Time: 5:30 to 10:00 P.M.

Brother ******* is sponsoring food & beverage in celebration of his marriage to sister ******* , may Allah bless their union... members of the community may bring حلويات عيد (Eid Sweets) to share with everyone.

Entertainment activity is planned for the children

We would like to take this opportunity to invite all of our Libyan brothers/sisters and their spouses in the Northwest to come & celebrate with us. If you know of someone who has no access to e-mail, please consider this note an invite to them as well.

LANW would like to recognize brother ******** ******* for his efforts through the years in support of community activities. We wish him and family all the best as they take up residence on the east coast – God speed.

Our hope is to have a year full of activities for our community, the more members we have ... the more successful our planned activities will be. Please note that such success can only be attained through our combined efforts … it starts with paying membership dues on Saturday Dec. 13th, 2008. Membership fee is a modest amount that has remained the same for a good number of years while facilities rental fees have steadily increased as well as food cost.
For members who have yet to pay, please bring your checkbook along … this is a worthy cause.

The Steering Committee intends to share budget information with all members on a regular basis … that will include; money collected, expenditures, and account balance.

Kindly respond to this note if you are planning to join us so that we may plan better.
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I wanna know if I am over sensitive, or Is there something weird in this email which supposed to be an invitation.

English Language

Ooh! This English language ...

Although I am supposed to be in a pretty good level by now, I still have an embarrassing trouble with articles. I HATE ARTICLES. I use all the tricks to beat this weakness, but it just didn't work. Sometimes it is totally illogic.

My teacher told me, it is all about countable and non-countable nouns, if u master them, the problem of articles will just vanish. Okay man, but how on earth can I master the count and non-count nouns when Food and People are countable, and Evidence and Advice are uncountable :(

Peoples, Foods ... but not Evidences, and Advises!!! Can we count fishes???!!

This whole thing doesn't make any sense to me ...

Any English teacher out there ... HELP!!!

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Okay enough crazy English, let's move to another happy subject, I'd like to congratulate one of my friends who got engaged lately, and as most of the girls do, she got a little frightened from the whole idea of marriage after her engagement, she is that kind of girl who is full of ambition, and totally dependent on herself, and achieved a lot in her professional life, she is not afraid of losing this, this is not the issue, she is just doubting if she have made the right choice, which is in my opinion is a totally normal feeling. There is no way to know if he is the right choice. Even if the couples had known each other since childhood, there will always be a risk, and the challenge is to take that risk. So be strong my friend and go on. I will take this opportunity and dedicate this song for you my friend, and I invite everybody else let's share this rhythm and enjoy.