The forgotten tag

Tala & Kinzi tagged me ages ago with the pre-18 tag, Although i think life starts after 18 and whatever you do before really doesn't matter all that much (hmm yeah that includes the crappy tawjihi or whatever else there is in you life as a rights of passage)
so here it goes ...

to list 6 things one should do before becoming 18 years old.

so am just going to say the highlights of pre-18.

1. Ignore the popularity contest that is school, you are who you are make that bloom: so much damage and false expectations in life stem from the fact that life in school mimics real life. If you don't develop the skill to connect with people beyond whats hot right now forget about ever being anything. Accept your differences, start thinking about who you are as a person, that is you, not which religion, family, country, color, and class. take a peak at the raw you.

2. if possible, sleep through it: oh sleeping in school is a must and i enjoyed that part thoroughly, if you feel you are not getting the education that you need from school that is the best protest you can do, while on the other hand you should not lax off and you should carry the burden of your education.

3. Go to a test without even opening a book: There are many types of intelligence in the world, don't make them brainwash you into thinking that you are irrelevant if you suck in any class. try to exercise your own system. by going to a test without studying you are measuring your recollection ability, your independent thought, your retention abilities if you paid attention in class, and you are also testing your stress tolerance and handling. screw a couple of grades points if you manage to get a positive experience in those areas which are far more important later on. you will never always have the whole answers in real life so might as well start now.

4. you are grade what ? i don't care: If you think that you shouldn't know something because its for a higher grade then i suggest that you lock yourself up for life and forfeit the dream of ever becoming more than what you are. You are only limited by the system, so screw the system. If you find that you have interest in something that goes beyond what is offered by the system then go after it, even if its at the peril of other courses that you yourself hold no interest in. Even

5. WHY ? just keep on asking others that: it bears repeating, KEEP ON ASKING WHY. If the answer is "heik" or "its just the way it is", its worth asking "why" again. While getting an answer and learning from others is great, what is even more beneficial is discerning half-truths and uninformed answers from the rest. You will face a lot of bias when you ask for an answer about anything, anywhere. so the sooner you learn to distinguish which ones to keep and hold on and which ones to fight and decimate the better. Always do that with the knowledge that you might be wrong and you aren't always right. Also a warning for the wise, limit the parental "Why" to 5 a day otherwise you might be experiencing some financial hardships.

6. you know money ? You know the thing that you get for just breathing, eating and by now you should know how that sentence finishes: Learn the value of money, money is what makes life easier but its never gives meaning to it. Learn what its worth to not have, and if you can learn how people that have a lot of it act, and how people change which the fluctuation of the amount of money in their pockets. learn what it means to save, learn what it means to over spend. just mess with money, earn money, try to do everything that you can possibly can with money before you hit 18. For it is the only 18 years of your life that your financial mistakes won't come back to haunt you later on.

oh and btw, life starts after 18 so if you want to mess it up try to do it by then ... and like one really annoying presenter from my school days used to say "age is just a number it doesn't matter how old you are, what matters is how much you know in this life"

ENJOY

A reasoning ... Why I Use English instead of arabic

Today it just hit me to think of the reason why I predominately use English as my language of choice... while regardless of what I claim Arabic is supposed to be my mother tongue.

Alot of venom gets spat around just for using this language, I am too familiar with the run of the mill reasons; it's a proof of the elitist class, the language of the enemy, Arabic is a wonderful language, and yare yare yare ...

As I got lost in my chain of thoughts it brought me back in the years to notice where did it change, and i came to the following conclusions...
unlike kids today were the parents are over pretentious about displaying their wonderful abilities is speaking the most abysmal English ever spoken (hmm not really but pretty up there, south asian, and asian FOB's gotta take the cake) and transfering the "fruit" of their knowledge to their young ones back in the day that attitude was more lax, and still my generation came out as it is right now. So that scratched the "parents are using english more and more with their kids" reason, i just had to get that out of the way.

Now i have been comfortable with English more so than in Arabic for as far as i could remember, with memories dating back to the preschool days (even mentioned it before in here ).

When i was young all the material that was available for me from Arabic origins was always talking down to me. Dad says do that and that (think "kaman 7azeen" or may "eureka"), religion says do that (oh so many religious kids shows in my days to count), society says do that ("2ifta7 ya sim sim"). essentially the other option to that demeaning programing was .... a dumber than dumb Arabic publications.

From then it got burned in my mind that whatever had a hint of an Arabic influence degraded the quality of the product. (hey i liked sesame street parts of 2ifta7 ya sim sim, but hated the rest) essentially there was no escape, no area for just breathing a fresh air. Kids are already absorbing so much information from their society and surroundings that they find escape when they head to TV and books.
So when they start to compare the originals and Arabic versions they start to notice subtle and mostly non subtle difference. With time that drives them to stray away in pursuit of the truth, which at a young age they revere it as the holy grail.

Then the pursuit to find suitable reading material since all efforts to find watchable TV material that didn't seem to over stress the lessons you to endure to enjoy the show have all failed (remember how depressing all the TV shows were ? with the exception of like grendaizer, and all the other mecha shows ..... there was just too many drama "am an orphaned kid pity me cartoons"). So you start reading some Arabic stories it doesn't take to long to figure out that it seems "ali" and "alia" are pretty much every where doing almost the same thing .... no creativity at all, and later in life you find the ones that interested you the most were only adaptations (the example to spring to mind is a book series I loved when i was in KG , it was called "burhan" which was French in origin if am not mistaken). So you keep going back to the same point over and over... that the quality of stimulation that you get from Arabic material is lot lower than anything else that you know.


The vague glimmer of an admirable all arabic production in my mind was a Syrian show, I think it was called "kan zaman" where a grand mother tells fantasy stories to her grand children each episode. that was a well done show for the time :)

by that time the kid hits school age, and smack he is hit with a tough as hell curriculum of grammar .... and a lethargically misadventures of a kid and girl.
Dare we forget the poetry which is either of a national flavor or way beyond relevance to the kids age. So that encourages the regurgitation rather than the digestion of the information.

Then due to lack of any stepping stones since they are not deemed literal heralds, you are thrown into the pits of "abu 2il 2isba3 2al 3odwani" and "2al ja7ith". just the name should drive to strangle your self....
The literally level is so high that every time you read a paragraph of "2al bo'5ala2", it makes you feel like the idea of bashing your head against the wall seem like an act of mercy xD
So at that point you are frustrated, and unless you were of the lucky minority who had a knack for learning Arabic (Yes reality is so few of us have the innate ability to comprehend it so easily) you were left with the "duck and run BOY! " option.

While all of this is going on, you are exposed to mind blowing experience in what you perceive as English speaking programs. You progress in your reading from Dr.Seuss style books to Ronald Dahl ... to Ian Flemming. which ease the transition to the prophets of the pen....
You learn grammar through exposure and practice, not through rules and memory cramming. In a way that it becomes second nature for you, and you don't really have to think and doubt your self "is it a dumma or kasra, willa la2 fee noon 2il niswa .... AHH"

So you learn to think in English for the sole reason that it makes more sense to do that ! eventually you decide that the highest competency you CAN achieve in Arabic is the colloquial Arabic, and regarding "kawa3ed" they lost you at the tenses and now they are discussing "3orood" (poetry meters as far as I understood it).....
Your 9th grade poetry book is discussing a renegade women riding a Harley smoking her reefer and discussing how she got deflowered, while Mr. Hatim seems to be like a broken record bitching about how he killed his horse to feed his guests .... Nice going STUPID!

Tell me now is it any wonder why ??!!

(I should have probably never included the last line since it will prompt a knee jerk reaction due to the claimed "hedonistic" tendencies of poetry, but I can't recall how many lines of virgins and wine I had to memorize during my school while being told in the following 30 minutes that we are not supposed to appreciate those things. That is just neurosis in a book ! )


Essentially language bridges in Arabic are very lacking, they are delusional in their belief that you can make the shift from every day speech to something spoken 1400 years ago and still be able to relate and comprehend. There is a reason why you don't get exposed to Oscar Wilde or Shakespeare till later in life, and it feels like the books are reborn than what you recall when you first read them and they didn't make any skills.

It simply means you were not ready then, so stop discarding poorly written stories that help bridge the gap or start producing works for different levels.
The really sad thing about this all is that I don't feel remorse for not learning Arabic in a proper way, since the reality of the matter is I don't use it for anything more than every day speech ........ I can't even maintain interest in reading an Arabic book because I don't have an impetus to bridge my gap, since there is nothing of interest that isn't translated, and when i read the translated version then i'll refer to the original to verify a few doubts I would have for the context and carry on .........


Ok fun Fact of the day, almost 70% of this post was thought off during a shower today. I guess the heat and having the AC busted at work finally got to me.

Listening to: PANIC! AT THE DISCO - Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Witheout Taking Her Clothes Off

Can I really Use PMSing ?

LOL summer I wish I could use such a convenient excuse, nope just mood swings.
Though I did display similar symptoms so its not that far off. Yes, the best advice would be to stay away from me when am in that mood.

So recently I was with a friend and he reminded me of someone that was (in my heart is) very special to me.

He was like:
"I know someone who had a big crush on you !"

I already knew who she was, he just affirmed something that at the time I was too young or too shy to confront.

She made me feel like no one else did, thankfully now she met a very nice guy and hopefully they will tie it down in the future inshallah. I am truly happy for her she deserves the best.

I don't think what I felt was jealousy, maybe a bit of regret for not staying in touch, also some fear.Fear of I will never feel that way again :(

To put things in perspective that was over 7 years ago by now :(
I don't really talk to as many girls as I used to, and the reality is that the only option available for me if I ever want to get married is the traditional way. THAT WON'T BE EASY.

So that idea, plus remembering what I was missing weighed down on me.
Am I ever going to find some one SPECIAL, or since i am a hopless case in that area I hope SOME ONE SPECIAL FINDS ME ! !
For now I sit and wait. Sorry if that was irrelevant to any of you, I just had to get it off my chest

Enjoy !

Ps. Qweider if you ever read this can you please check why when I post a draft on my blog it aggregates it on Qweidar ?

La Mala educación - san

that is I guess a short brief of my education in Jordan!
now I don't really know how to do this since I wrote all those parts in one sitting and am hacking and slashing it right now... lets carry on then shall we :)

now to the comments and views I developed through that period and later on.

1. the teachers are under qualified to teach here, I understand all the comments about the public schools and their situation and I do sympathize. here I am talking about the so called "elite" schools per say. Teachers in these schools fall into to categories in my opinion:
-old school: ancients that are as fossilized as much as the material they teach they want the attention of the class and are so frustrated and take it personally when someone proves them wrong.
they also lead the students on the path of you either do it my way or no way !

-new age teachers: these for the first 2 months of school honestly come in to teach, and these are the ones I supported during my school years, although most failed to live up to my expectations. they come in to try new things and due to pressures from the archaic principles and peers, and the rowdy students are forced to adopt a nonchalant attitude of "it's their responsibility to learn ." the only successful teacher I have encountered of this type that was a young red head girl that was teaching physics and was actually getting through to the students for different reasons.

To thwart the underpaid teachers legend here is a fact ! teachers that barely have a clue about the material are hired for 350 JD to teach a two 45 minute classes a day , if you work it out thats being over paid not under paid.


Now for the students, honestly this is normal but I always felt that teachers pets do more harm to the class than good, and teachers encourage this attitude out of the students. a huge fire eats up all the small fires it comes across, those student tend to set a standard for other people that makes it really hard to keep up with. this causes the students to give up.

As for the material am sure its dated and all, and the claim that the tawjihi is a ride through hell and back is one that i can't really relate to since i didn't go through.

what i can say is that what i learned as topics is much more in depth than what was taught to my peers in the tawjihi, and the way they presented was much easier to grasp. my quarrel is that memorizing has been so ingrained in the system that by the time they get to tawjihi they don't know how to study otherwise !


in my opinion memorizing is essential in the first three grades of elementary, after that the students have enough basic to be able to think on their own and start forming opinions which should be the focus of the next 3 grades. then continue with a mix for both.

but education as a whole hasn't really evolved in Jordan, all through my school years i have been a failure at three main subjects: Arabic, Religion, And French. (should i add too lazy to go to P.E.)

Can find the common thread here ? Yes its the emphasis on memorizing that these classes required. Arabic, Religion, and French you had all these poems and grammatical rules and names that you had to memorize without even comprehending !

I always wished that I was able to take core course on these since I was sure that when the time comes these three subjects will be the ones I least use !

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honestly i am not sure how this will read and i apologize if it was a tough read sorry :)

La Mala educación - ni

This is the second part, if you didn't highlight while reading the first part it might be worth it.
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For the first part of my education;i.e. till 12th grade. lets summarize by saying that i switched 3 schools in my history, and all three of them were notably boring !

As a kid~still am~ I was not really interested in the facts since some way or another I was able to obtain them on my own, what i was more interested in is to discuss my ideas and thoughts with others (yes, and i still am trying to this day) .

so I was frustrated by sixth grade and decided to start my little rebellion on the system.

first of to test the theory that "I have to study to get good grades".

So on the math final I didn't study, I got lower than what I was used to but i was happy since I didn't spend as much of an effort. so that succeeded.

On to the next major phase; lets test "the teacher is always right" theory.
This is were i bloomed since I always written off from a discussion for just being a student. my rebellion was in full blast ! I was waiting for them to slip, and oh boy they did (I actually feel sorry for my math teachers they had it the worse).
so it was a daily mission to thwart every teacher (except for the very few that i liked) into a know nothing bastard. MUAHAHA

My success was proved by the fact of getting ignored by the teacher, and rarely being quizzed during the class. This developed a weird relationship between me and the teachers, a few truly respected me, and in exchange I respected them(and still do).
So my rebellion was a success and I literally was operating on a different plane during school hours.

Now this draws such a bleak picture of me during my school years, to be honest this attitude was only displayed to the arrogant "I control your destiny" teacher who have been teaching diligently for the past 20-years or so. These guys/gals used to instill fear in their student to be able to teach.

On the other side of the fence we have the fresh teachers who came with the honest intent to teach, and wanted to challenge the stereotype of a teacher. I supported those, and i tried to the best of my abilities to encourage them.
too bad the rest of the class were to eager to take advantage of the lax enviroment they created, more often than not they were reduced to tears, and didn't last long.
Among the victims were a twenty something cute chem teacher who had too much faith in the maturity of the students.

An English teacher who thought being "the macho man" will command the male's population admiration , Ya right took about 10 days to get him weeping like a six year old.
Another English teacher that took the nice route of dealing with student till she found a kid jerking off in class (am not BS'n here that was a popular dare back in 8th grade) then turned in a tyrannical Medusa but i don't blame her.
To top it off a religion teacher that introduced the class to kick boxing more often than religion, and was the proud proclaimer of "I can kick anyones ass in this class, I know kick boxing".


I think it was 10th grade when I had a teacher that truly spent the effort to teach, he was Iraqi and his name was Munir. He taught us O-Level Physics, but in actuality it wasn't what he was good at.
He was the person that would start the lecture with optics and end up discussing the interaction on photons with atoms.(no kidding, totally of the wall lecture)
needless to say the class was a mess, and almost no one listened to him, but what I truly appreciate him for is listening to the crazy ideas of a 15 year old. He was truly brilliant I wish we had more of him. definitely beats the social studies teacher that was surprised that December and January had 31 days ! (where the hell did they get teachers)

Towards the end of my school years (I spent the last 2 years in a different school) the teachers seemed to lose hope, they regurgitated what they had to and then leave. you had the good teachers were everyone was utilizing wasta to be in his class, so you ended with the attentive people in one class, and the "Hamals" in the other. I seemed to mostly be placed in the hamal's class.(not that I cared)
At that point I did enjoy the surge of over qualified teachers we had due to the iraqi situation. my favourite was a couple of doctors, one taught me Human biology(hardly a class it was like 5 people) and her husband taught chemistry. they were such sweet people and was one of the few classes I enjoyed :) I wish them the best of luck, they truly were over qualified.



-I think one more to go, this is a biography of sorts and i appreciate you if you read so far ! i dont really think there is a point for posting it other than that i like it to be documented somewhere.
as i also like to read other's school lives

La Mala educación - ichi

Well this started out as a comment for Abu Shreek's post but then carried on a lot longer than it should. so I decided to post it here .

This will be a series of posts that move from my years in school to university, decisions that I made along the way, and a conclusion for how things are now, since am out of the system and more of an observer than anything. WARNING - expect a lot of sleeping so i can't recall moments
LOL ! (my summary of the article)
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Background(were am coming from) : coming from a person who spent his first 12 years sleeping in class, and spent the next 4 years skipping class and still managed a 3.1/4.0 GPA to earn a BSc in EE I might be slightly out of the average in my comments (i am not boasting here but preparing for what i want to say. since i don't want to come off as a lazy idiot of the class, or the highly involved model student) - dont take it against me that I hid this
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Well this trip along memory lane brought back so much joy and frustration and was meant to be a short critique to the system that ended up being a long study & critique of my educational life. plus a realization that I slept too much

My enrollment in the system came in the form of nursery school, a place once called Sindbad. I actually owe it to this nursery for my English language since it was my first interaction with native speakers, which was in fact the empitus for me to get better at an astounding rate in the English language, and defined my usage of the language later on (or so I came to believe!). I can't really expand much more than that due to a hazy memory. it was so cool as a kid to be friends with a prince

Of course then came KG (tamhidi), in a certain historical monument of Jordanian education located in Jabal Amman. one of the girls in my class there got married last summer i was happy for her

- - passing note : "i loved those turtles and that sand box in the middle of all the classes" --

Here was the first time that my artistic abilities been recognized something I am really fond of, to the extent that I still have them to date. what I want to point out is that during this stage the people responsible for me where able to focus on education rather than spoon feeding.
They were able to boost my imagination and help direct my energy into productive things, and rules were set to direct not inhibit the students.

Then came elementary school in the same line as my KG, that boys school in Jabal Amman, then my dilemma with the system started from as early as 3rd grade. At this point my interest were starting to take shape. I started to draw more in classes, and started to be interested in having a discussion as an adult. school teachers there were of such archaic nature that the generation gap and understanding was always a hurdle to get over.
Something else started to develop, the fact that I was not being taught anything that wasn't already understandable and available in the book ! coupled with the fact that my father was teaching me third grade math and science when I was in first grade didn't really help those teachers either. one funny thing is one time in 2nd grade a kid was cheating of me, that didn't bother me. When the teacher corrected the test she noticed something peculiar, the kid misspelled his family name. turns out he even copied my family name from the paper

now that is novel

So since I could not learn much from the classes I stopped paying attention due to boredom. Plus the other classes that I wasn't good in didn't hold any interest to me, and being the stubborn kid I was every time they made the point that i don't have a choice in learning them made them so much less appealing to me. Regardless of that I was always able to achieve good grades. Except for my French and P.E grades those were horrid. "2is2alo labeeba" was a true marvel

the curricula that we were taught was a mixed bag, Arabic language was some how out of context and was written to people who have grown up in the 60's now that was exciting. Religion was a tough one since you were always reminded not to think about it. Social Studies even at that tender age was a joke. Science was actually pretty good and exciting in a way(although maybe am biased). Math was pretty good although I was more occupied during that class with sleeping. P.E was so frustrating I could never understand whats the point of winning the football game, so i like to sit as a goalkeeper and do nothing :)
music was too queer, we even had a mummy as a teacher (the guy was as old as my grand pa "2allah yirhamo", his name was Mr. Charlie but he was nice). I was even in the choir for 2 years (people who know my voice now will frown in disbelief) think Rachid Taha but slightly more tone deft

Arts always had the beautiful young female teacher but that was a minor reason I liked. its too bad the other kids always made a mess of this class. I got back at them by messing the football games so we were even


The summary of the situation was as follows;

uninteresting teachers that laid the law, and where there to spoon feed. that made school an unappealing thought for me, that is except for the fact that I could sleep well.

Students that were competitive and the comparisons made between students was moral crushing to them.


btw this part one has been tucked away in the draft since 8/14 wow ! i think it would have better to leave it there. I hope i'll get the other ones out as well