What can one say to sum up 365 days???
 

How can you describe all the good and bad times???

2005 was very eventfull … but not all on the good side.

I met new exciting people … good!!
I also met some jerks … bad!!

Found 3 good jobs … good!!
Lost 2 good jobs … and thensome … bad!!

My sister got married … good!!
My uncle died of cancer … bad!!

I have a new baby nephew … good!!
I haven’t seen him yet cause he was born in the states … bad!!

The list goes on!!

I thought that something really significant will happen to me in 2005 … not only nothing significant happened but a lot of insignificant unhappy things took place instead.

I am sitting at home … blogging!!

Weather is so cold outside … but I really wish I had someone to celebrate the cold weather with, instead; I am sitting in a 4X4 room, with my loyal TV, and my buddy the laptop, and an interesting book to read … what a lovely way to leave a whole year of my life and greet a new one … but as this is the best I can do now … I will settle that it is the best thing to do ever!!!

Happy New Year my friends … clock is ticking and its only a few hours till we finally say goodbye to a long heavy frustrating year.

Boy oh boy!!

Another New Year’s Eve in my lifetime, and guess what? Like all the previous years; I am still alone, i.e. with no companion; in other words; I am still single, you know what I mean, *sigh*

I remember when this night used to be so much fun. Me, my sisters and friends used to have rituals that we do every New Year’s Eve, partly because we did not have the privilege of going out and at the same time; we did not have companions (boyfriends, fiances, husbands) to celebrate with.

Sitting here now and thinking of the good old days; I would love to share these rituals with you in an attempt to make fun of myself and prove to poor me one more time that I am finally mature!!

       

Now, these were important ingredients for the long night. We used to give each one of us a task to do, so one would bring the potato chips (she has to bring several flavors), and another would bring the popcorn; whether ready-made microwave type or the good old dried corn in the pan; it is her responsibility and she has to do it.

Fruits, juices and milkshakes are the next in the line when it comes to New Year’s Eve rituals. Again, all this effort is shared and divided by all.

Good old homemade cake … nothing beats that. Mom used to put it on the heater (el9oba) and the smell would be all over the house. We used to do it in different flavors as well, but I did not like the nuts that mom used to put inside, I love my cakes plain.

And how can we pass the night without some lebanese appetizers (Mazat)? It was fun preparing them; especially the “yallanji”

Then we would wash it all down with the good old Pepsi … nothing beats it!!

We would play lots of games together and dance to the sound of the latest albums of famous singers at that time, like Ragheb 3alameh, 3amr Diab and others.

Now we reached the final and most peculiar ritual of all. I don’t know who planted the myth in our heads, but this ritual is about an orange skin!

The myth states that if you peel the orange without breaking the skin, just like the picture, and then place it under your pillow, so when you sleep, you will dream of your future husband … DUH!!

These things sound so far now. My friends and sisters are all married and have their own lives; I don’t see my old friends any more, and I guess that our relations died with these rituals, and to tell you the truth; I do miss them both!

Hope you will all have a lovely New Year’s Eve with those that you love and care for!

We always say that rivers, lakes, seas and oceans are still closed doors to us simple humans. It has always fascinated me how beautiful and dangerous are the creatures that live under water; it is worlds under the surface, and I guess like people; they have struggles to decide who is the strongest or the fittest.

But what happens when the struggle becomes between the two worlds? the one under and the one above? Surely there are going to be many clashes. Sometimes we win, but sometimes they do.

The creatures that are superior to single man strength fascinate me the most, and I really admire those who are brave enough to explore their worlds.

Why am I writing about this?

click on the image to visit the blog

Well,
I came across a great blog that specializes in these issues and it has
some interesting information that I have decided to share it with you,
trust me; you will not regret visiting this blog; just click on the image above!

Apparently; Hollywood people do not have that wide of an imagination when it comes to these water creatures, because their world is weird and strange enough that all they have to do is explore and research to come up with the most horrifying movie ideas, and I am not talking about sharks only as the water worlds have many a dangerous creature.

I once read that there is a type of jelly fish that is considered to be the most poisonous creature in the world; each of his arms hold a several thousand poison needles per inch making is very dangerous, and should it hit its victim with one of its arms, they will not have the chance to even scream; talk about very fatal ha?

So do visit this blog and enjoy the useful information!!

Click here to view the profile of the blog owner.
Here is another link for the blog: Swim At Your Own Risk!

Very Brilliant!
 

You probably have heard this or got it by email, but I thought this was cute enough to be posted on my blog!

We have always heard about babies named after famous football players, or singers, but for a kid to be named after an electronic site!! Now, this is new.

The email I got states that a lebanese family residing in Sweden had a baby boy, so the father went to google to search for a nice name for his son. Apparently; he got bored from searching and a bulb was lit in his head; why not name the baby after the site; i.e. google? and that’s exactly what he did!!

Google learned about this baby, who is the first in the world to be named after the famous search engine, and they sent the family valuable gifts for the kid.

I believe that the family has great hopes for their newborn baby; he might become famous himself one day!

But what do you think they will name their second baby??? Yahoo??

Here is the official website and here are some pictures!

Dim lights and warm cozy ambiance; that was the first impression I got when I entered Canvas last night to participate in the JP meet-up. Like the majority of the attendees; this was our first time in Canvas and I think it will not be the last; cause we all liked it.

Unfortunately; we did not have the chance to interact more on a personal level, but we sure had the valuable opportunity to meet the people behind the great blogs that we came to follow on JP. The familiarity of the meeting was an experience to talk about; it seemed like we knew each other from before, and we got along like long lost friends.

At the end of the meeting and after some of the attendees left, we had a chance to gather around and discuss a few things in a group activity. We got to discuss topics of common and national concerns like the education in Jordan; I am actually waiting to see some nice posts about it; and I might do one myself.

I leave you with the pictures that I took from my angle, cause right now I just can’t sleep, so I decided to use the time to post about the meeting that took place last night, and by the way; Laith Zraikat and myself were the first to arrive and among the last to leave. It was raining outside when we finally left after four great hours. We had so much fun, and looking forward to doing it again some time soon.

Jordan Planet and all its citizens are way so cool, thanks to all those who made it possible.

One of the waiters took this picture from the other end

Rami taking notes

Isam looks like he was singing

I could not hear what people at the end of the table were saying, yeah it was a big meeting!!

Discussing

The waiter took this one; this is me with the long hair

Laith Zraikat introducing himself to the group

Laith Z, Lina and Roba is trying to take a picture of Laith Majali

Laith M introducing himself, Mariam is listening and Laith Z likes his Mango Cocktail

Ziad seems to be getting the attention here

Mariam is finding it hard to leave, she is trying!

Nader, Ammar, Mira and Abeer (Mira’s Santa’s hat looks good on Ammar)

To read previous comments on this post; please click here

2005  was a very full year, on all levels and in every part of the world. Lots of lives were lost, in acts of wars, killings or mother nature.

Some of these people had a significant impact and contribution to history of their countries, and some people were unknown and passed this world without leaving a mark that will remind future generation of their lifetime and no one will know that they even existed at a point of time.

Scientific breakthroughs, discoveries, new inventions and lots and lots of new lives; this year has witnessed with us pains, sorrows and happy moments. We laughed, we cried, we got upset, we shouted, we smiled, loved, hated and expressed our feelings in their purest human forms.

As we prepare for the final count down of 2005 and move towards 2006, I wanted us to take some time off and review some of the significant events that took place in 2005.

To add some fun to this review; I have “cartoonically” posed for the 2005 calendar and will share the pictures here with you. All you have to do is click on the picture representing me for any specific month, and review the events, and while you are doing that; let me know which one of the “Me’s” you like the most. Let’s go!

               
         January Me                                    February Me

              
             March Me                                     April Me

           
             May Me                                             June Me  

       
       
             July Me                                       August Me

                
               September Me                              October Me

            
                November Me                              December Me

2005 is waving goodbye, taking with it a whole year of our lives, but it also added a lot to us, to our wisdom and experience.  Hoping that 2006 will bring our way some nice surprises and good fortune. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

P. S. I did all the pictures using the following program; it’s so cool and I recommend that you try it (http://spstudio.linda.hosting-friends.de/sp-studio.swf)

All information were obtained from Wikipedia

When I first read this in my email inbox I got so excited, because Toyota happens to be my favorite brand in automobile industry. Unfortunately; I am not driving a Toyota for the time being, but things change!!

When I opened the attachment of my email; I was amazed and for so many reasons; take a look at the picture and then let me tell you why I am amazed.

Click on the picture to enlarge

Now, I was amazed because as simple as these people are; they are innovative enough to make use of half the “once was” a pick-up and use it for commuting.
If you pay attention to the photo, you will see that they are happy and smiling to the camera. God knows how many people are sitting in the back, yet those peeking to look in the eye of the camera are just happy because they are being photographed, their simplicity is something to admire.

I was wondering though; do they really need this number of animals to pull this load? or they have other things in mind and the picture is not translating them?!

Anyway; I liked the Cowrolla term that was given to this new breed of Toyota ..

My apologies to Toyota; but I got this picture by email and thought it was amusing and nice to share with all friends out there .. so enjoy!

I feel down!!

For so many reasons and for no reason at all.

I feel numb!!

Paralyzed and still.

Sometimes it hurts so much to get up in the morning and drag myself to work, but I love my work and I guess that’s what keeps me going.

Somewhere along the way; I lost my friends and it is so hard to go back and find them. Time have changed, they have changed. Making new friends is not as easy as it used to be, at least for me, now I feel too old for that or I am not mingling with the right group.

Most of the time I am alone, but mostly I am lonely.

Deciding to be a part of the solution; I stopped thinking of the many problems and complications around me and started thinking of solutions. Still, nothing amuses me, nothing makes me happy … am I depressed?

Last night; I was having a very interesting conversation with my sister who happens to be an English teacher taking a long unpaid leave from schools and students. She was sitting there involved in some craft work for her daughter, because the art teacher decided that this is a suitable thing to torture the girls with, and it started like this:

Me: what are you doing?
My sister: I have to finish this for Majd (her daughter) because she needs to get a grade on it tomorrow
Me: do they still do these things in schools? my god, this is such a waste of time and talent, besides, she is not even doing it herself; which means that the teacher is not achieving the objective of the whole thing.
My sister: what to do? she(teacher) is sitting home now watching TV and I am stuck with this till 2:00 A.M.
Me: please forgive me; but I really need to laugh at this, it is so silly.
My sister: well; that’s as far as the teacher knows
Me: she should evolve a bit and improve herself with something that is really compatible with life now. Kids in art classes are working on painting and maybe some graphic design, and she still teaches them to do some middle age craft work
My sister: well, it is not purely her fault
Me: what do you mean?
My sister: well, the ministry should pay more attention to what they are doing to the teachers
Me: what do you mean? from what I read; they are trying to improve things in schools and modernize methods and techniques; what more can they do?
My sister: It does not happen overnight. For example; when you force the teacher to include essays in their teaching plans; doesn’t that need some time to be implemented? Teachers do not know how to teach students how to prepare essays and how to extract information from books.
Me: Come on; those teachers were students one day and they were required to prepare essays and papers, so they must know how to do that, all they need to do is pass the knowledge to students, how difficult is that?
My sister: are you kidding? when a teacher has 50 students in the class and has to control them and teach them at the same time; this is like a mission impossible.
Me: Isn’t that a part of the job?
My sister: well, yes; but when a teacher has 27 classes to teach per week; where does he have the time to teach students how to do essays properly?
Me: how many hours aday does 27 classes translate to?
My sister: 6 working hours per day
Me: thats less than any other employee; government or not
My sister: but the normal employee does not have to deal with 50 youngsters driving him crazy
Me: every job has its downside, I guess.
My sister: what I think is that when the ministry wants to implement new technologies at schools; they should give some time for the teachers to cope and be confident to pass the knowledge to students. So take the essays for example; this was a cash cow for internet caffe’s because students go to them and buy the paper for a couple of JD’s, so no one is getting any benefit.
Me: You can’t blame this on the ministry; they are doing their best, but they can’t change each and every person, they have to want to change.
My sister: why are you defending the ministry? you were never a teacher so you would never know what I am talking about.
My sister’s husband: well, she was a student and she thinks that all students are like her. Not everyone is a straight “A” student you know.

I smiled and ended the conversation

But, this got me thinking about what we call “Less Fortunate Schools”, and had to wonder; is it really the schools or the teachers?
Each school has the same elements as any other school; they have classes, boards, equipment … etc. It is true that some has less than others but that is not really the issue. What makes the difference is the teacher.
Teachers say that they are paid less and work more, but how do they measure and compare? Is it less fortunate schools? or less fortunate teachers?