Why is it that the majority of my readers are women ?

That question has been on my mind lately, as it was very evident to me that the majority of the people who read my posts and comment are women (except perhaps for observer & the occasional qwaider) , then it kind of hit me today when I came across a comment by enigma on ChiKapaPPi's post that went like:

LOL all we have to do is boycott the male blogs for a day and see what happens to them!!! I bet you they won’t get more than one or two comments!! yalla girls BOYCOTT THE MALE BLOGS!

and I thought to myself how true is that ?

Now really its so evident now, maybe I do have some other readers but am sure as hell never hear from.

So since I read that this afternoon I was trying to think of reasons, now one thing that came to mind first and for most is that women in the blogosphere when they read something that they like they let you know. Now some might say a "thank you" comment on a post doesn't add much to the conversation but it sure is nice as hell to read those after spending some time writing a post. It's such a rare event for me to come over a post where it was a guy posting such a comment.

Most of the posts that i see on daily bases are mainly light hearted posts, maybe the reason is that women are more in tuned with their emotional side and are able to express their emotions more freely. Or as I like to think of it that growing up as a man in this environment it wasn't one of the skills that we were encouraged to develop. So naturally when its a light hearted post when you go over it and read it as a man you might have something to say but most of the time you wouldn't since you feel like the way you parse those series of events or happening are particular to you and your comment will not add much substance to the conversation.

Which brings me to the next point, post something political and you will notice the testerones drawing their guns quicker than a jarhead in Falluja. Thats the other thing, guys love confrontation. nothing beats the sensation of being able to place your head a micrometer higher than your peers. It's the type of factual regituration than we excel at. To boost we get to express our opinion, which we are a bit on the narcissistic side when it comes towards how we feel about it.

So naturally the conversation devolves quickly into snark attacks and women steer quite clear of that quagmire.

Now one playground that we tend to meet at is the sexual and religious playing ground, which observer excels at capitalizing on something that I really like about his blog is that it melds the boundary between the two camps. Even there it is quite amusing to see how each behave, in that area especially while you would expect the V camp to be quite timid and shy they tend to be the more encompassing and accepting of new outlooks and ideas. On the other hand the T camp tends to be their same old self of "what I say is the right thing and there is no comprise about it. if you are not willing to bend backwards or shut up am going to start the insults". Now am not excluding myself from that saying since at certain posts and blogs i tend to be a big pain in the @$, and i draw a certain pleasure out of being a smart @$ especially when the blogger is a bit full of himself (yes, am thinking of one blog that I like the posts and the way he tackles things but his personality of being so high and righteous really irks me)
I only came across one case of that when it was a female blogger and she is a special case i think, a couple of screws got loose in her head and she holds a grudge against so i go and bother her every once in a while :P

Also one other thing I noticed about bloggerettes is that they are never content with a paper thin representation of anyone that they are curious about (I cross my heart i meant this in the most utterly benign way and even though stating it so bluntly might put me in a grey area i would prefer it rather than leaving it up to interpretation). They are actually genuinely interested in constructing a 3-d perspective of who that person is, and they tend to look at him more as a person than an faceless avatar. With guys i rarely feel that they are interested beyond that specific instance of interaction and although there might be previous interactions it doesn't hold much weight in consequent communication unless it caused a stark polarization...

Thats what occurs to me so far, maybe am just over analyzing and guys simply don't fancy anything am writing about.

would welcome any additional, or even counter points regarding this.

now for the puzzle of the day... perception

M N P O F I H Z S L H S L I
Y E D P O S T I U L D A L G
K X R E A D E R S G R G I E
Y T M E N T I O N R I H W I
M G X K N O I T P E C R E P

Hint: what am i going to talk about next

Childhood theories and musings

When I was a kid trying to make heads and tails of the world I always came up with amusing and pretty wild theories for why things are the way they are. Somewhere along the line of knowing more about the world it managed to unhinge the imagination and tuck away in the back of my mind.
I am not really sure what made recall those weird theories today, but am sure as hell proud of every single one of them.

The theories:

• We had a really bitter French teacher (if anyone went to the bishop school then i think her name was Fatikha) for some odd reason she had one of those hair pins and it always looked like a femur bone to me. so the deduction that i came to is that i shouldn't be annoyed because she is a total bitch and very mean after all she has lost a child and thats the source of that peculiar hair pin.

• There is a vast difference in behavior between girls and boys, and I also couldn't help but notice a considerable difference in behavior between Christian and Muslims. since I figured out that girls don't have dinosaurs in their pants I went to look for how Christians were different since i associated behavior differences to physiological origins. I found one main feature difference, Christians got a couple of more visible veins that are green in color in their foreheads while Muslims don't so thats how i used to identify Muslims and Christians as a kid

• I used to love dinosaurs as a kid, and was always fascinated by the fact that they went extinct. I even had my own theory of how they went extinct and every time I was in the bathroom I was reminded with my theory, here it goes.
  It is as follow, a certain body part of mine really resembled a Triceratops' head. So that means dinosaurs didn't go extinct they got so friendly with humans to the extent that they became part of their body and thats how we don't have any dinosaurs around. thats One reason I took good care of my Triceratops :P

• There was a deep innate belief/wish in me that I was adopted, or if that wasn't the case then am atleast an alien spawn that was transplanted into this family (hmm actually that still sometime cross my mind till now). So I was always was anticipating the moment when my parents are going to break that news to me, and how I would be devastated and live the homeless tough life and triumph over all the hardships (\earn me a dancing dog and clamping monkey friends along the way) and dramatize that whole thing in my head. I attribute those symptoms as an emotional reaction for the sheer amount of depressive ass shows that i was made to watch as a kid ! Think Remi, lady lady, sally, Bell & Sebastian , Adnan wa lina, Sandi bell and a few more that were all orphans living the tough life .... good what were the dubbers thinking when they picked them.

• There is a way to gain super powers, all you need is pain tolerance and perseverance. Here is how it goes, you have to gradually expose your body to higher and higher heat levels for longer and longer periods of time. Eventually over time you will be able to teach your cells how to generate heat by themselves and you can be a flaming man just like the human torch. I think that lasted about 6 months then my heat source was taken away; read it was winter and my bed was smack stuck to the radiator.
  

In conclusion I was damn kick ass kid, no wonder that my parents just left me to watch TV rather than me asking them question. Also If you didn't know TMNT when I was in first grade you deserved to spontaneously combust in my eyes!
ENJOY !

thf fjrst rfbljzbtjpn cbmf bs b shpck bt brpvnd thf bgf pf twflvf
hint: a twist on the crypto

Addiction

There is no way I could know what you experienced, right ? I couldn't possibly feel that need... Like a 1000 hiding voices whispering "this is who you are!" and you fight the pressure the growing need rising like a wave.
prickling and teasing and prodding to be fed but the whispering gets louder till its screaming "NOW!" and its the only voice u hear. the only the voice you want to hear, and you belong to it.
to this shadow self...
to this dark passenger.
Yes, The dark passenger.
~Lila

I am in love with that passage lately, to the extent that I wish I was able to write something on that caliber.
anyways, the other thing that was playing in my head lately is that I came across an article a while back regarding changing habits that i totally loved and wanted to have my go at but given how efficient i am it took a few weeks to get to it and now I can't find that article to atleast give credit to it since it was the inspiration.

So sometimes you come to a point when there are certain habits that you picked up along the way, that regardless of how you view them, you feel that you might be better off dropping them or may just want to adopt new admirable habits that you think you will be happier having.

1. Ask your self why you do it ? Unless you know why it has became such an internalized need for you to do those thing(s) you will not be able to summon that extra will power at the instances when you are the weakest. It does take some introspection to find those reasons, its not such a bad idea to monitor yourself for a period of time, or recalling how you happened to pick up that habit at first and why you like it right now.
For me that would a time filler, a relaxant, a medium for focusing and clearing my thoughts, and
a nostalgia for lost things.

2. Decide Why you are going to be dropping the habit: first thing along the way, there is really no need to venture too far for reason. If those reason are not innate atleast reason with yourself to make them so, if you are not convinced that this is the right thing to do for yourself there is no way you will be able to persevere.
For me its slightly brutish and silly but the reason for me to do what am doing is that i hate to have a shred of a doubt of me not being able to do it. Call it jakara bi 7alee, but usually thats the biggest motivator for me. Some others might find health reason, some others might have the benefit it instills into others around them... to each his own but all must internalize those reasons.

3. Fill the void: Its not called a habit for nothing, this is something that has been pretty much part of who you are for years. Don't be naive to think that you can just forget about it, YOU CAN'T.
So best way to do that is to try to fill the void that will be left, try to replace it with something else. Think cough drops if you smoke, you bite your pencil buy a whole bunch of pretzel sticks or twirlers. I know its not the same and am still trying to work on better solutions.
Try to find replacements that would be able to satisfy most of the needs you have identified.

4. Remove the temptation: what's out of sight is out of mind, if its not going to be in front of you, you will reduce the amount of time that it will be calling for. you have to also minimize the exposure to things that are associated with your habit (e.g. ashtrays, "people")

5. Don't be discouraged: what you have been doing for the past 12 or so years you won't be able to over come in a week, month or even a year. you are certain to have some setbacks but there is no reason to be discouraged not even if you lose control and binge a bit. Hey after all you don't really hate it, actually you like it a lot so its understandable (<-- my dark passenger speaking there)

6. Set milestones: check progress on the firs week, month, 3 months and year. see how much you manage to achieve at each point and when you break it down it gives you a foreseeable point that you can look forward to. (please no obscure 12 step crappy milestone styles those sux)
It's like being on the tread mill for 30 minutes and your losing your breath and about to collapse on minute 28, because u know you have it in you to wait the extra 2 minutes it helps to tough it up and finish them. although on the other hand if you didn't know you had 2 minutes to go you are more prone to just drop it. same thing could happen if you start obsessing about how much time passed it will just remind you more about what you are doing and will be a counter productive process.
the best method for me so far is just to forget about how long its been, and only when am feeling a bit discouraged to check how much time is left for me to reach on of those milestone and take solace in that

7. "My favorite" Reward yourself: what a better motivator than that :) and if you normally reward yourself regardlessly its an excellent excuse to pamper yourself even more. (a new hard disk, me wacom, and a trip, it's gonna be lovely !)

8. ask for accountability: tell a few people what you are trying to do, ask them to ask how you are doing every once in a while. They have to be people that you are honest with atleast, so that when asked you will no avoid the missteps you had and face them. Thats one thing the AAA got right having somebody that you are forced to be honest with not because you want to but because they know better. Get yourself and accountabuddy! ask him to not go easy on you even if you ask for it.

9. are there others like you ? the sense of competition in us is so great that if u can find somebody else going through the same thing you are it will give you a major boost to not fall behind that person in progress. It doesn't matter if you know him or not, you can find somebody on the internet and keep track with them, and that will be a good time to get to know someone new.

10. If you have a loved one do it for them: this might be a bit of a twist, but if your loved ones would be happy with you quitting your habit then even if it doesn't make much sense for you to quit it then do it for them.
For if you are the type of person that takes a great deal of pleasure out of seeing your loved ones happy then there would be no better reward than that.
and if you don't have a loved "one" might be a good time to preoccupy yourself with getting one :P

yeah it sucks that am writing an advice column sounding post .... but it seems writing about it will atleast help me keep tabs and serve as a reminder.

ps. I beg you, please oh please no encouragement. I already told you that am jiker (is that gile ?) so it might be counter productive but thanks in advance if thats what u had to say :P
pps. Quit the pep talk already, so out of character
ppps. Tougher luck ! I love to use those ps's even tho some grammar police bloggers might digress & object about that one too
pppps. $hit, i can't think of a puzzle ... that sucks .... oh wait might already did the puzzles something looks amiss with all those ps's
p...s. Never use this one again, by the way japanese people read differently from us traditionally
p...s. Got to say this thanks to the people who actually had me on their mind for the blogger thingy, i think u know who i like to read and i try to make my presence there even if there are still some of u that confuse bambam with a female for some odd rzn, and turns out that am funny, weird ...
p...s. Bitter quitters who were proud of their will power to quit a habit have manage to eradicate a part of them and that made them what they are today. thats what i think happened for them to be so self rightous and think they are better than the rest because, pitty them, they managed to quit and become over zealous bitter people who turn off any others from quitting for the fear of becoming like them

Come Along - Titiyo

For some rzn that song was playing through my head while i was ranting on my previous post :P





Come Along Lyrics

I feel like an ANT again !

or maybe one of the slew of zombified workers who just click away their days, a proud member of the working dead.
You know how john lock used to press that button every 108 minutes, I feel I serve as much of a purpose at my current job as he did...

Am I lazy ? nope I wasn't. do I totally waste away my time ? not really, but there is a finite amount of personal projects I could come up with.
So why am I still working here ? I can't be bothered to move to another dead end job again, if am going to move this time it will def. not be for the money. I WANT TO WORK.
So you didn't have that in mind when you moved to this job ?
ARE YOU KIDDING ME ? I was utterly pissed off with my previous job because I didn't have any tasks to fill up my 11 hour day for a couple of months, so i wanted a job with alot of work and a bunch of tasks to occupy me and allow me to have as little idle time as possible so i picked this job.

So what happened?
Well the same story repeated itself, tards placed as managers that don't know the first thing about team work or management, corporate bureaucracies that fuck up what little work you are given because other retards are not willing to cooperate and do their share of the work.
Even when you try to start up work project and self improvement projects for the company for some reason the managers seem to find that as a threat and shut you down or adopt those projects themselves. of course since they rely on the working dead task force things take eons to finish, while you are done and your project is collecting dust.

Eventually over time you get infected by the zombie virus and you become as dull and unproductive as the rest which is fucking driving me mental !!!!! yes am slightly far from rational at this point, and please don't tell me its my own fault, as anyone who actually knows can probably argue that point on my behalf better than i could right now.


PLEASE GET ME OUT OF HERE ! AM EVEN WILLING TO DO RANDOM PART TIME JOBS ! ANYTHING AS LONG AS YOU CAN PROVIDE ME WITH MEANINGFUL TASKS AND ARE WILLING TO UTILIZE ME RATHER THAN PROPPING ME UP ON A CHAIR WITH A COMPUTER SCREEN IN FRONT OF ME DISPLAYING PRETTY COLORS OF THE SCREEN SAVER ALL DAY LONG !

Tough love

We have forgot how to tough love, somewhere along the point of trying to create the safest environment for kids to grow up in we forgot how much life sucks at certain point.

We raise up our kids with an idealistic expectation from the world, where everyone is honest and no one gets hurts. we shield our kids from the slightest of harms and encapsulate them in a bubble till they are ready to get married.

Kids growing up nowadays are really a sorry bunch, they are getting ready for the shock of their life once they start to look life in the face. It's entirely different to the view painted by their parents on how life should be. For they are the most beautiful, intelligent adorable and utterly one of a kind children that need admiration from everyone they meet because its just what they are accustomed to. then comes life to ruin everything and they find out the truth that there are more beautiful, adorable, intelligent and truly exceptional kids in the world, and they are not all winners. poor kids !

Not just in that sense, we forgot to tough love in the sense that kids are not allowed to be kids anymore. Kids are supposed to go out and play, break stuff, get hurt, bust a leg, get in trouble, feel sick and get dirty ! We raise kids in a highly sanitized universe thats about 500 square, the meters in size, the lucky ones get to play in their back yard. if they dare to do anything remotely dangerous and fun they need to be crippled with protection and pads, and if they do it anyways. oh boy if they dare to climb a tree, for instance, they are going to be reprimanded HARSHLY. I just love this next bit, whenever there was a kid in the class that used to be active and the life of the class the comment was that he was a lively and social kid and he used to be tolerated and even admired at times. now that kid is run over by doctors and diagnosed with ADD along with other fun acronym and his system is overloaded with pharmaceutical drugs to conform to our view of idealism -_-'

We seem to have forgot that without those experiences of failure, pain and the pleasure of earning successes and conquest we are robbing the kid of one of the most important character development tools. We are restraining kids to a limited reality were we teach them that they are the best and if they are hurt by the rest of the world then that world is just jealous of them and they can always defer the reason for their failure onto others.

The funny thing about all this is that latter on, us grown ups, start complaining about the younger generation how they are a bunch of wusses that can't handle life and its responsibilities. how these days kids are depressed and are cry babies when they are faced with failure.
News flash we created them that way, the reason we did that is that at one point we believed our own delusion that the world today is a much dangerous place than it used to be and we need to protect the younglings from it for as long as socially possible.

In fact the world is a much safer place these days, kids having a higher chance to live to their 20's than any other point in human history. Yes there are the occasional unfortunate events and stories, but it shouldn't be the case for us to confine our children even more every time we hear of another kidnapping, accidental death or whatever other news that makes you want to bubble wrap your child from the harms of the world. It's not true that those occurrences are more common these days than they were in the past, in reality the media these days are able to play on the parents fears and blow these stories out of proportions, and they are better equip to access and propagate such stories.

The right way to go about it is to equip the greenhorn to deal with life and all its ugliness, for without experiencing some hardship in life they will fail to appreciate its beauty and in contrast they will find it utterly boring and bland. They shouldn't be given mixed signals either, don't teach your child to be modest when you actually demand from him to be the best at everything regardless of the means. Teach them tolerance, and that everyone is special in their own way and they shouldn't be discouraged by failure it should server as their impetus to find what their specialty is.

For the time being I am happy that they are raising a generation of overtly medicated, deeply depressed, delusionally frustrated, safe players. who for their lack of acceptance to the harsh realities of life will remain eternally childish and not accept the responsibilities they are meant to shoulder. that in and off its self makes me happy because it guarantees that my generation, even truer to older ones, will maintain their edge over those child like adults for a lot longer than we should ! keep up the good job alarmist parents for am cheering for ya :D



IX EQG PBWK YDISTRNW KQ LNNF KDNIR XNNK QW KDN URQGWT FGK MQVN RNMFQWMIOISIKE QW KDNIR MDQGSTNRM
~ Abigail Van Buren
hint: cryptogram I=I, K=T, and Q=O

Marriage

Why is marriage the epitome of growing up ?
Growing up and after you have finished your education the next on the wish list of parents is that their son/daughter to get married and have a bunch of kids for them, thats how our parents grew up and thats how we were brought that.
After that you live happily ever after and rinse and repeat the cycle. It is a huge stigma in society if you reach a certain age and you didn't get married, or worse ! if you are married and feel you are not ready to have kids yet.

The way I see things is that marriage is for certain the partnership that we come in least prepared the deal with, all through life we are discouraged to polish the tools and means that will be most helpful to us during the major part of our life.

So our first experience living away from our comfortable nest is during marriage, that is usually one major obstacle that faces newly weds. They find it hard to comprehend how much tolerance and effort it takes to live with someone else, things are not always supposed to go your way. Thank "god" for our culture for it makes that part easier for men, atleast they don't have to deal with that part since things are supposed to go their way regardless. not just that but the wife should always be competing with the first women in that man's life, his mother.
So that comes with its fair share of problem creating potential.

We send partners on a quest to the unknown, armed with naivety and full of themselves to replicate two different environments rather than coming up with their own. each partner is meant to replicate the environment he grew up in, hence its only natural to except clash of the world from that, the probability of that happening increases exponentially with the proximity of one family over the other. Since the rope is being tugged in one way more so than the other it helps put pressure on that relationship and straining it to the point of fatigue. I find it one of the most beneficial experiences for newly weds to be as removed as possible from their own families it tends to paint the relationship with its own tint.

touching on relationships, most commonly and in the traditional sense, the two parties are expected to be virgins. both literally and in the sense that they never had a relationship that they strived to protect since they consider everything before tying the knot as a dispensable practice. So we have two people that essentially don't know how to deal with a sexual relationship which no matter how much of hypocritical society we have to face that its a totally different playing field than that platonic playground of youth. Ergo, the result is that we have a relationship that has living under one roof and mechanically procreating kids at its center rather than having a loving and intimate relationship at its center the way marriage (IMHO) should be.
Marriage is never considered a true and equal partnership, we were just not brought up that way. whether thats the right way or not is something I'll leave to better equipped people to decide, but am certainly of the belief that when you decide to intertwine your destiny with somebody else's both parties should have equal say on where, how, and when things should progress and no party should have a final say on things. Mutual agreement is the only way to make that destiny move forward rather than self destruct.

Traditional marriage tends to serve one of two purposes in my eyes (honestly am all for it actually) either its the easiest method to side step some of the problems that might show up if the relationship was allowed to bloom under normal circumstance, or that in our day and age those people haven't developed the proper social skills to be able to actually achieve that level of relationship on their own. both cases are guaranteed to cause problems in the future.

On the other hand its so commendable to marry at an early age, for me that serves a great hidden purpose in the case of women. when they are young they still trust the institutes and you have on your hands a lesser chance of rebellion, and as some people say you can mold her as your wish. Do we really need that child like mentality when facing life and its problem, the uncompromising attitude of children that either nag till they get what they want ?

So the final tools to make sure that those marriage golems remain in one piece is that we have to push them as much as possible to have kids, for if the marriage is meant to be broken that might give them a good reason to stay together, for they will be doing it for the kids. What a great loving environment for the kids to grow up in. We can also call upon divine intervention and decree to either not allow divorce or give the man a chance to try his luck a few more times since he might have picked a bad apple. too bad we don't protect the family or the women in either case whether its by dogma or law, for it is always their fault for not being obedient enough.

It shouldn't be that way ! Marriage is an evolutionary step in life, you can't skip steps. It should never be for everyone, but everyone should strive for it. To those who never find it are not to be outcasts of society for they might have been answering to a different calling. We are not just mechanically procreation machines, that shouldn't be a reason to marry someone. its called mating in the animal kingdom so why do we degrade marriage to that state! marriage should be a life building exercise where both parties put everything they have, all their baggage, on the table and honesty look forward to creating a better life.
Not to enforce the familial ego, not to please the elders, not to look acceptable in the eyes of society and its customs and religion BUT to enrich the partners lives and create a better reality for themselves for they only have each other and no one else should meddle in their business and how they carry on with their lives for they are starting a new tree.

Without that in mind, and with all the previously mentioned reasons no wonder that married life is always depicted as a miserable one. It is truly rare to find a couple that attest that they are in bliss, and most commonly it will be the married men giving the advice, half jokingly usually, to the bachelors to never get married and live their life like its supposed to be the eulogy of our life.
So you end up with broken home, adulterous partners who lead double and triple lives to please society, their partners and themselves with their happiness never fusing those three realities together.
May you all live happily ever after and choose wisely !

o jp[r yp gomf ,u [stymrt om ;ogr dppm gpt oyd ypp nptomh yp ,pbr pm gpt ,udr;g

Hint: transformations :D

What happens when BamBam is bored out of his head at work ?

This

& This that made the cut so far ...


And more of the same to finally end a long long long day....

Me Vs. I : Ramdan & Eid

Now that both Ramadan and Eid are over i feel a bit at ease about posting this without being lynched since everyone has been so lovey dovey about Ramadan and Eid I didn't want to ruin it(or risk getting lynched for that matter).

As I was growing I had high hopes for Ramadan, you gain a lot of "points" in that month plus u get to earn money at the end... SWEEEET
Now its just the biggest month of hypocrisy, you pretty much know that the religious mask that everyone puts on is just for this month.
Even though pretending to be pious for a whole month does take its toll on their system so they naturally translate their frustration into anger !
so you end up with a month full of over zealous angry people who are just starved and parched instead.

Oh Boy! I love the already religious people in this month too. I'll give it to them that they are less hypocritical Since they are devout year round, but they don't fair any better. Not to be outdone by the former group these guys literally flaunt how religious they are during this month, they find it their right to give you a piece of their mind of how utterly condemned and corrupt you, "fa 2allahoma inni sa2im" is like the priests repentance writs in the middle ages. ABSURD!

Really I like to fast, some how it is relaxing so you don't have to think of all the essential and instincts for half a day and that clears your thought. what i don't like is the way people become oversensitive little twerps that feel the world owes them something because they are being "good Muslims".

Then we have Eid, oh lovely Eid, Really why bother trying to connect with a seasonal family ? for what selfish reason do people do that when in reality you can't rely on them in times of need the way you rely on your true family !

I guess all that matters in our world is to be modest and save face in front of others for the sake of others

9 1 13 14 15 20 18 5 12 9 7 9 15 21 19 19 9 12 12 25
ps. you might win the lotto with those !

Gratitude tag

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning "
Friedrich Nietzsche

OR

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation"
Oscar Wilde

This is an old tag that was done by Hayat And I got it through Observer, what am supposed to do is pick a quote that expresses gratitude and pick 5 things that am grateful for.
being me!
As Usual i couldn't make up my mind regarding which quote I like more, but they are of the same spirit so I went with both.

It might not be evident how they express gratitude, but to me I feel great gratitude for being an individual. For nothing is more monotonous than living life without always chasing after the answer to the question of "who Am I ? " If at any point I settle for adopting any of the labels thrown at my feet everyday I will lose my individuality and be assimilated into the faceless/nameless crowds.

On the journey of trying to find the answer to that there is one truth that I adopted along the way which has been of a tremendous importance to help me stay the course, which is "I still don't know much about anything". I Strive to learn more about my self, the people around me, and the world hoping to come out with a better understanding that will inch me closer to who am supposed to be to others and hopefully the world.

Since as the previous two paragraph might infer, I am very grateful to every person who is patient with me, who don't write me off at first encounter and help me along the way by tolerating and criticizing my antics who do cross a few red lines every once in a while.

I am grateful for the Arts, for it serves Pandora's box that stretches the boundaries of the conceivable and is the closest celestial appiration that I laid eyes on. For the ability to transfer part of your soul, that endures immortality, and takes a life of its own in other peoples hearts and souls is divination.

All that would not amount to anything if it wasn't for one important thing that makes humans what they are, the most important facility to a greenhorn like me. Ergo, I am most grateful for the ability to reason.

I tag whoever feels like being tagged :D

333 88 777 777 999 7777 444 777 8 44 33 2 66 3 7 666 7777 7777 444 22 444 555 444 8 999 , 7 2 55 444

hint; hey did u figure out the other possibility :P

Me Vs. I

YO!
bambam: What are you doing at 3:30am writing couldn't this have waited till tomorrow dammit ! i got work tomorrow you know.
No Angel: *crack* * crack* damn those fingers feel a bit rusty, this has been a pretty short Ramadan, but i feel inspired for some reason...
bambam: yeah yeah try to get it done with quickly the pillow is calling me
No Angel: Anyways, was watching the daily show and something brought a smile to my face and warmth to my heart. It was the last part where they had the interview with Tiki Barber the RB and he was talking about a story that touched him and the words "Jordanian fugees soccer coach" where just bolded in my ears. So I just had to find out a bit more so thats what am doing here, as for why now well it just sounded like the right thing to do at that instant. It has been so long since i heard someone genuinely speaking of anything coming from our region that was not just positive but quickly wamed up my heart.

So i started reading about it the team, the kids, and more about coach Luma mifleh. I was really grabbed by the whole thing. I was even more pleased when I stumbled on a post by Natasha (mental mayhem) , i missed that story somehow, but soon i became dismayed by the comments. We have become so xenophobic of media and read a bit too much into the wording that instead of having admiration about what this jordanian woman was achieving some got stuck on the way they mentioned her origins and religion(islam) and even a hint at how she had easy in her life which felt like it was a stab to her integrity in some way. The way the story came out to me and the need to clarify the origins of the team is to put into perspective that this is the south, Atlanta to be specific, these are people who live in bubbles and hate to have them disturbed. The reason the origins of the team matters is because they would/have/are being fought on all the levels, if you have a rosy lovely imagine of white suburbia in the US when you are part of a minority then please dispel it.
bambam: wait wait .... aren't you doing the same thing your are criticizing by reading too deeply into their comments, then again so far all this sounds pretty rosy to me. Hell its too damn rosy, it is even mentioned that there are talks about a movie they are going to be rich !
No Angel: Ya Ya, that aside now you are looking at things skin deep, what she did is truly inspiring to me at least. Here is someone, who with no doubt in my heart, faced her fair share of discrimination. Who still happened to stumble upon her place, where she is at home. she went beyond coach and metamorphosed into a mother to a family of 120. here are a bunch of kids, into a totally foreign environment that is not exactly welcoming them with hugs and kisses. two things are tying them together, their miserable past and they passion for soccer. this women has been able to go beyond all that required to go into really taking care of the families, even starting a small business to help raise the family's earning potentials beyond minimum pay. We all say that we like to help, some of us actually do help but only a few are able to truly help others and that is what is remarkable about this to me.
bambam: Chill out on the dobey there, what next you dissecting Jang's theory ?
No Angel: don't mind that, thanks for the heads up :P but don't digress dammit its already 420 u know !
What am trying to say is that some go out and help out a family, some go and feed an orphanage full of kids, some more do some more of those different things. we go do those and feel good about ourselves and head back to our little bubble. What Ms. Luma Mufleh did is glue families that have been snatched out of their trees and thrown on the ground to practically fend for them selves and give them a fighting chance. she didn't just stick to coaching, she didn't just help the kids out, she didn't just discipline the kids and teach them self reliance. She made their problems her own and their happiness her joy, she is them and they are her ! and here is the shocker, she didn't do all of that on ramadan's only.
You know bam what really left a chill in me, is that the one thing i found common among the Fugees. They mainly came from Muslim countries who were torn from conflict, and instead of stepping up to help, really help, we belittle ourselves by being worked about how they talked about us, how they are not giving us a fighting chance, how they belittle our culture with their caricatures, mainly incoherent angry talk.
bambam: True dat, I just wish u didn't miss the irony that as far as i know ur only good at talking too so just get me to bed and lets lay the philanthropist attitude to rest now.
No Angel: BASTARD !

ps. the puzzle of the post is among the lines