A day of Remembrance in Captivity....

For some reason I have no specific topic or issue to write about today....I'm afraid everything I'm going to talk about is going to turn into a big lie....you see, I talked about love in the world of hatered...I talked about peace at times of war...I talked about friendship amongst a crowd of enemies...I talked about loyality when betrayal was a trend...Doesn't that make me a liar???

Despite having no plans of writing tonight....I felt like I was suffocating and in order to breath normally I have to get some things off of my chest...tonight reality held me captive in its basement....It forced me to face the heart-ranching world I wake-up to every morning....A place where water is being privitized, forests are being cut-down, people are being bombed and corporate media is getting richer...when I complained about these issues being too international for me, I was reminded that I was raised based on my Islamic values, where you are taught to ache when someone or even something gets hurt...you are not supposed to say "oh that's sad but hey, did you hear Lindsay Lohan got arrested today?"....That just wasn't the way I was brought up...




But to my insist... I was also given a glimpse of the domestic environment where paradise was nowhere to be seen either....Many of my country's expat residents saw my fellow local citizins as being totally arrogant and ingnorant, who have more rights than them despite not deserving it for the right reasons...on the other hand there was the team that I belong to and I could totally see the disappointment in their eyes...in this one way they saw their culture melting-away because of them being a minority.....many of them saw expats being treated better than them at work and public places...The feeling of being a stranger in your own country was the harshest ever....and whats worst that some of your own people were responsible for that...




I was bashed by Muslims when I defended Islam...I was let down by women when I talked about Feminism, But despite all that I still take a stand and keep on trying (or lying, who knows?) and I will keep on doing so, despite knowing it for a fact that it may be a lost war and I may not make any difference....And that's the difference between me and the "others" that I'm still fighting while they have given-in...Defeat and loss happens when you quit, but as long as you're trying you are still considered-in and glory may come along someday...remember big revolutions were always started by individuals....Who knows what this crazy girl may end up doing someday....




P.S. sorry for being extremely political tonight, I tried to be as positive as possible despite talking about the most depressing issues of our times...

(The image is a famous painting JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS called Ophelia based on the Shakespearean play called Hamlet)

Home...

Two years ago I was going through a very messy and chaotic faze in my life...Some of our current circumstances forced us to move from Abu Dhabi to Sharjah. It was a very difficult thing for me to do, I'm sure its difficult for anyone who has lived in a certain place for 19 years, and all of a sudden is asked to move to another place without having any choice....I was very angry, but my way of expressing anger is to simply become the Quietest person you will ever know....

And to make matters worst my university refused to move me to Dubai as it was the end of semester, and they preferred for me to finish the term at the Abu Dhabi campus (The university has two branches one in Abu Dhabi and the other in Dubai, and it was no problem shifting from one place to another, but the people who administrate there just love to make things difficult sometimes).....And putting this conflict in mind my parents decided we are going to rent a furnished apartment where we are going to stay for over a month until I finish my remaining semester...

But after a family friend knew about the fact that we are going to stay somewhere else, she insisted that we stay at her place (isn't it funny when relatives don't act polite in times of need, instead total non-related great human-beings are sent for your rescue?)....My mother and father being the people that they are totally turned the lady down but she insisted, and at that moment I jumped and said I'll stay here for a month while you guys can move ahead and settele down there...I had no idea what I was getting myself into...My father had no problem with that as he has always allowed me to make decisions for myself, but my mother wasn't pleased about it......She didn't say anything but again I never needed any language to communicate with my mother....The look of her eyes always gave me the preview of her current imotion, whether it was anger when I do something wrong, or sadness like I saw it on that day....

I still remember the evening when it was time to drop me off at our friend's house....My father took me to this fancy restaurant where my mother wasn't eating anything....and after that they took me to my destined destination....My mom went ahead with my laguage while I stayed to say good bye to my father...he gave me a hug and walked me hand-in-hand to this giant gate...he looked me in the eye and said....Dear, if you ever need anything call me, even if it is in the middle of the night I will be there....I think that was the most touching thing my father ever said to me...not that he is a stiff man when it comes to his emotions, but that moment would top my list for him being the great father that he is...(P.S. I wasn't talking at all at that time...bad habits die hard...lol)

My Mom was waiting upstairs for me with her friend and her daughters, and she was already crying....at that point I let all emotions rule me and got teary eyed myself....I didn't even hug her...I'm not good at good-byes..in fact I SUCK...My friend was like what would you do when you get married... and I was like Well my husbans is gonna have to deal with it...lol.

My parents came on weekends and took me back to my new so called "home".....but I did stay in AD without them for well over a month and to my surprise I HATED the place....it wasn't the city that I knew...it wasn't the city I grew up in...It wasn't the city I was greifing for because of me leaving it...

All of a sudden it hit me....Home Wasn't about 4 walls and a Ceiling or a city anymore...to me at that point wherever my parents stood for me that would be called home....It isn't the house or the city that makes a home....its your people and loved ones that make a home.....

After over a month I finished my semester and was re-united with my parents again...throughout that time I remember being completely Emotionally shut down...thats the reason maybe why I don't remember much of my time there....

I recall the first six months being very difficult for a quiet town girl to adjust and settle in a city that literally doesn't sleep.....But now I feel like this is where I belong...Beside I got to meet alot of amazing people that I never thought I'd meet in my life, two of them are Canc3riaN and Dynamic Deeds who need no introduction to their coolness...But above it all I'm glad I understood the concept of home this early in life and before its too late...

Why Do They Hate Us???

A few days ago I was surfing through different blogs, and all of a sudden I came across this blog http://secretdubai.blogspot.com/ ......I'm not sure how many of you know about this site, but as for myself it was a total shock of how much grudge many expatriates hold against the local masses of the UAE....There are no information about the person's profile or even any clue if it is a job of an individual or a group of people....

The blog touches many taboo issues about the local culture and some controversial news....and I see absolutely no harm in talking about things that need to be brought up in day-light, and I'm all for freedom of speech and constructive criticism....But I absolutely do not support this cheap-tabloid, bullying, perez hilton type of attitude and barbaric manner. I must say that before reading this blog, I though only Fox News and parts of the western media thought of us in that way, but this site opened my eyes to this fueling hatered within many expatriates in our land...

I started noticing that many of my expatriate work collegues have very stereotypical thoughts about me and my fellowe Emiratis....I can understand a bit of their language, and they pretty much think that we are these backward race of people, who became rich over-night, and now we are here to take their jobs away from them despite the fact that they are the ones who deserve it much more than us. Today we were sitting in the cantine where they have a set of TV and reciever...and one of the young local guys working with me started flipping the channels and stopped at a very embarassing scene where the remote simply stuck and refused to change to the next channel....I went to bring me something from the vending machine and I can hear some expatriates saying in their "language"....What a lazy porn loving guy..a typical local"..... All of a sudden I remembered this blog I was reading the other night...and how much dissing took place against the the UAE nationals there....at that moment it became clear that it is more than an internet thing...in fact it may have escladed into a national phenomena.....

These people are as bad as those living in the western countries....they have no clue what so ever about the local taste and culture....and unfotunately they claim that they do have enough knowledge and have done their homework....One of the articles that angered me was about Lt Dahi Khalfan's quote on labeling the owners of the current Arab Entertainment channels as "Electronic Pimps" .....and how this is such a lame thing to say and it contradicts everything happening in Dubai (ofcourse if you read the article you'll know that I have rephrased it in such a nicer way that its almost the opposite of what the author wanted to say...simply because I don't talk the tabloid bullying language).....The blogger even questions how can a TV channel(or an SMS to a TV channel) threaten the national security....Well this point proves that the guy can not even read Arabic...coz if he understood the stupid and crazy things written on screen and the high chances of those things sent by a 13 year old, he would've definately known what Mr. Khalfan was trying to say....

We can't understand homosexuality....we can't understand pre-marital relationships just the way these people can't understand our conservitiveness, so what gives them the right to bully us with our thoughts when we can't agree with theirs either???

I remember once a visitor from America come to our university and asked us in an SBS class the following question....."Despite being the native people of this land, you guys are still considered a minority....in that case where do you see you and your people in 10 years from now....are they gonna be scattered and on the verge of extinction like the Native americans...or will they still be in control?".........Well I'm not sure of the future....as no one else is....but one thing I know for sure is WE WILL NOT END UP LIKE THE NATIVE AMERICANS....INSHALLAH.....and we will try to preserve our values, beliefs and culture....Inshallah...

PEACE,

SFS.

Gym Class Heroes

Just like the previous summer, I made the decision to re-join the gym that is very close to my house. I was always the sporty kind of girl during my school years, I was a Gymnastic and was inrolled in the soccer team. But during high school years and with the huge amount of studies I had to do, this interest slowly faded away, and last year I discovered that I have lost some of the flexibility I had and wasn't able to perform some of my signature moves. I decided to gain back those moves by joining the gym.

I'm not obese in any way, hell I'm not even Fat in fact people around me think that i can easily fall in the skinny category (not braging about it just explaining for the thought ahead). My only intention for going to the gym was to be fit, but that wasn't the case when I reached there. At the entrance there was this image of this super skinny girl with slogan on it reading be slim, step inside the gym, and again you are surrounded by these extremely waifish ladies that are trapped inside the walls through a big giant poster.

As I mentioned I'm more of a skinny type and I was depressed by seeing these images when in fact they are there at first place to serve as a means of inspiration for women to work out even harder. At that point I started wondering about the feelings of other women who have more havier bodies, How do these ladies feel when looking at these pictures?....Isn't it too harsh to be bombarded by images like these from all over the place??...I know this is what the current standard of beauty is but at least the gym should've opted to promote a little more healthier image of women....the internet and television are already doing enough to promote this trend, so can't the gym just stay out of it please??

As I was leaving the place for another hard day at the gym...I took one last look at these ladies who are working even harder and enduring all the pain heroicly simply to look like the girl they're looking at inside the poster and fid-in the current criteria for being a woman...Gone are the days when a healthier looking woman was the real appeal because that meant she comes from a rich household (pre-Islamic eras) and say hello to the era of girls that look like they are starving and are in a desperate need of a sandwich...

Its a New Day, its a New Dawn, its a New Life...

Today I start blogging for the very first time, I remember writing my feelings as a child on bits of paper but that habit was soon tarnished by one of my family members finding out about it and feeling not very comfortable about the angry content ( trust me, it wasn't even close to the gangster rap lyrics...it was very innocent and tame)

Years went by ristricting the habit of writing only to school homework, and after entering the university I heard about a thing called Blog for the very first time through one of my professors who blogs often. It didn't really excite me since the habit of expressing myself through writing was buried years ago, and again couple of more years went by and some of my class-mates started blogging and it was like a new land to be raunchy and say everything that was against our culture and religion, this was so discouraging and it didn't help my attitude towards blogging any good.

And after a long-tough academic year one of my closest pals Dynamic Deeds encouraged me to blog telling me that it only takes a few seconds and it will be fun to write and express what you feel and think, but I was too tired to write about anything for the whole summer since it was a very Exhausting semester I was just coming out of.

But Tonight, as I'm sitting alone in my room thinking about life and how last summer was almost the same and how next summer may be completely different, I remembered about Dynamic Deeds and her blog and how liberating are the vibes you get while reading the stuff she writes and the Feelings may be even better if when you are the writer.

Today I start a new trend in my life, I don't about know the future of this trend but I'm very excited about it and can't wait to draw the images in my head through the most powerful tool of writing.