When I first entered the world of blogging; I was not expecting this success and popularity, I was not even expecting that I will be so attached and addicted to this amazing expressive method; yet; here we are; almost a year later and I am still connecting everyone through this blog that has become a part of me as much as I am a part of it.

I have been away from blogging for a couple of weeks now and of course there is a good reason for that.

There comes a time in one’s life where he/she thinks and believes it is time to take a new step towards a new milestone in his/her life. Many reasons and events lead and prepare us for such a move and all of a sudden; you are faced with a decision to make and if you even hesitate for a bit; it will be made for you and sometimes not nicely.

So it is time to announce that I have moved on and I am no longer working with Jeeran. I have known Omar Koudsi; the co-founder of Jeeran for some years now and I think I can safely say that he is a friend of mine, but sometimes it is best not to mix friendship with business and it was not too late to separate. Omar was and will always be a good friend of mine and I wish him and Jeeran all the best; I would love to see this company grow because it has a very good concept and prospect; so best of luck guys.

Since this step was taken; I decided that I want to move my blog as well because I like to be independent and to be perceived as such. I also don’t want my own opinions and convictions no matter what they are to be associated with Jeeran or any other party as this might not be fair to them or to me. So, you are all welcome to visit my new blog here and if you have previously linked to my blog or any of my posts; I kindly ask you to modify your link as this post is my last one on this location and my official blog is http://www.anolitasmind.com

To comment on this post; please click here

See you in my new location; you are all welcome to drop by!

The last time we had a meet-up, it was in May and it was a small meeting if I recall well. In June and July; we got caught up with the World Cup and the days flew by without us noticing that. Right after the WC, we have been watching, observing and experiencing the war on Lebanon and Palestine and it just seemed every one was caught up in something and we just could not make it.

Last week; I had a discussion about this with my dear friend Roba and we suggested today for the August JP meet-up and so it was.

We met at the Paris Library again because we liked it in April. This was a big meeting and we met some new bloggers; this was their first meet-up like Moey, Samer, Adel , Ziyad and Rana.

We discussed lots of things and we tried to make it light to take our minds off of the current situation even if for a couple of hours, but in the middle of the meeting; a small political debate broke among me, Dar, Adel, Roba, 7ala and Moey and later on Ahmad joined at the end of it but by then, the conversation had shifted to something else but also somewhat related; it ended smoothly exactly as it started although I was accused of not listening although I really was !!

A very interesting chat started among us and it was about all our childhood cartoon shows and we even sang some of their start songs; it really felt like we were that young and that innocent again.

Samer was sitting across from me and I kept teasing him and he kept laughing and smiling; such a lighthearted fellow and I would like to thank him for his good sports.

This was one of the longest meetings I have attended and many people showed up; I was particularly glad that Wael came to this meeting as this was the first time he comes to a meeting I attended. Also; there was Ahmad and Zeid who added a special flavor to the whole thing; thank you for showing up guys; it really has been long.

I will leave you with some of the pictures I took and as you can see; everyone is blending and having fun.

Moey, Ibrahim, Jad & Salam


Abeer, Roba, Wael & Ziyad


Alaa & Samer


Isam & me (Thank you Samer for taking this photo)

Have you ever gone through this phase of emptiness? Where nothing is working and nothing is fulfilling? When you look around and you realize that there is not one single truth about your life that is satisfying? When you find yourself alone with no one to lean on? Is this depression or beyond it?

We say we have friends, but where are they? Each is leading his/her life in another part of the world; even if physically close, it is thousands of light mental years apart. You want to reach out to rant without being judged and what do you get? A preach!

You look for people who would empathically listen to you and what do you get? They don’t have enough time to spare.

I am depressed and probably not making much sense; I am sleep deprived and I wish to be sedated; when I do wake up, I hope it would be to a different world and a different me!

I have been observing with a tearing eye, with a broken heart what has been happening to Lebanese people in their own land.

Each one of us considers his home to be his shelter that protects him from all dangers and harms, but when this home turns into pieces of paper that does not shield sound or vision; it becomes something that is the exact opposite of a shelter.

How can you feel safe when you are exposed even if inside these walls you always called home? Who turned you shelter into your trap? Who kicked you out and did not even give you the chance to leave?

Many questions and many disappointments; we see all these lifeless faces on TV and on the net; and we feel crippled. Our Lebanese brothers and sisters in Lebanon need more than just a cheering or a condemning crowd and that’s why we at Jeeran decided to do something about it.

Bloggers for Lebanon is a project that is sponsored by Jeeran, Save Lebanon and Jordan River Foundation.

Please join us in supporting our brothers, sisters and children in Lebanon by providing what they don’t have in these circumstances; if we cannot share their air and their fight; the least we can do is share what we have with them as they need it more than we do.

Help us promote this project by adding one of our banners to your site, or by spreading the word; the effort and the cause are worth it and we thank you for your cooperation.

In response to my friend Jad’s post that has the same exact title as my post; I want to share with you why we (girls) should not marry bloggers; what can I do Jad; you really have inspired me ... LOL

1-      He will blog about your mood swings and your PMS; not good!

2-      Every time he sees you online; he will suspect that you are blogging about him and he will create a big fuss about it both online and offline!

3-      Will test you through anonymous comments if you are bad mouthing him or not.

4-      He will remove you from his blog roll because he does not want other men bloggers to know your name or that you are married to him.

5-      He will rant about wanting kids on his blog and seek sympathy from his fellow bloggers because you want to pursue a career and put off having kids for a while, you insensitive you.

6-      He never wants you to comment on his blog because he will take every word you say as personal and a virtual fight will break.

7-     He expects you to have at least one post per day describing his wonderful traits as a husband.

8-      He expects you to support his decision of buying the huge sound system that he already installed in your living room without even telling you.

9-      He will rant everyday about your nightly headaches.

10-  You will only discover it through his blog that he bought a new mobile phone, iPod, and the Apple laptop that is on the way.

11-   He does not know that you already know about his other secret blog; how could he think that he can pass something like this.

12-  He will get angry if you reply to the guys who comment on your blog; you should ignore guys and reply only to gals to salvage his manly ego.

13-  You will hear about your burned meals and that you do the laundry only once a week from his blog.

14-  He will blog about your long baths and the masks you apply on your face; he wants you beautiful but does not want to know how you do it.

15-  He will put a poll on his blog asking about how to cure headaches because Panadol is not doing the trick.

16-  He will post about men’s rights to discipline their wives and how God has given them this privilege over women.

17-  He will complain about all the money you wasted on the stupid wedding part; his hard earned money.

18-  He will rant about your mother and you will only read on his blog how he really feels about your family.

19-  He will blog about how you outrageously got upset just because he forgot your birthday and your anniversary.

20- He will get ideas from his readers on what to get you as a gift because he does not really have a clue.

21-  You should strict your blog to female readers and declare it as a male free zone.

22-  You should be cool about girls commenting how he is a great guy and a wonderful thinker and how lucky his wife is.

23-  He will use only colors you hate when he designs his blog because he does not want you to like it there and stay for a long time.

24-  He will rant about you wanting him to be in the delivery room; he is a man, don’t you get it? He is not supposed to see these things!

25-  He will accuse you of being obsessed with raising your 1 year old son alone just because you did not want him to get the F16 toy for him.

26-  You will read on his blog that he works so hard and how you are being insensitive and give him more chores when he comes home, like for example bring the groceries; you should do that for a change.

27- He will post instructions on his blog on how to fix the sink because he is too good of a handy man and does not need to call the plumber, the electrician … etc.

28-  There is nothing wrong with men having huge bellies and this does not call for a gym membership.

29-  He will complain that you blog more than you cook; he is a man and needs to eat!

30- When you hear his podcasts, you will be surprised that he only talks about marital misery and how staying single is the answer.

31-  He will blog about how confusing you are and that all you want to do is talk; there are more important things married people can do you know.

32-  He will mention that he is married, but he is a guy you know; he can afford something on the side.

33-  He rants about your job and how he is feeling neglected and not taken care of because you have a career.

34-  He will blog about his love relationship with the remote control and how you keep trying to drive wedges between the two sweethearts.

35-  Baby weight is still weight and you will continue to be careless about yourself until you lose it and fit in the wedding dress again; you read that on one of his latest posts.

36-  If wrinkles start showing on your face, if you grow some white hairs, if you start getting tired easily … etc. you are getting older but his bald head and big glasses are signs of maturity and you will hear it from comments on your blog trackbacking to his posts complaining about that.

Anything more girls? ;)

No offense guys! I really like you all but this is only for a good laugh :)

Update:

37- He might have met you through your blog and fell in love with you and your personality ... but after marriage; he forgets all about that and complains about how you love your blog more than you love him ... by the caller

38- You will read a daily rant about your nagging and how you are making his life a living hell because you just don't stop yapping ... by Iman

39- He will send anonymous commentators to your blog to convince you that home is your best place (or convince you with anything else) ... by Shaden

40- When you fight, he will send them to make fun of your posts and put you down. Continue to do so until you shut down your blog. You will know about it from his secret blog :-D ... by Shaden

I was just having a conversation with my colleague 7ala about educated people and sophisticated ones and how there is a huge difference between both. In a country like Jordan; education has become a necessity like food and medicine; it seems that everyone gets to pursue higher education especially with all these private universities out there.

If we go back 40 or 50 years in time and see how Jordan or the whole Arab World was for that matter; we will find that only a minority of population got the opportunity to pursue higher education; this minority was usually from the rich class because they could afford to send their children abroad at a time we did not have universities here.

University of Jordan was founded in 1962 and starting that time, other sectors of the society had a chance to study without traveling, and education was no longer restricted to the financially fortunate individuals. By then; even middle class families could manage to send their sons and daughters to university to give them a chance at a better and brighter future than them.

I think it was initiated then that almost all people wanted to children to become doctors or engineers because those were in high demand at the time, they would graduate and find jobs waiting for them and they would make good money that will help them and their families to survive.

That generation got the most benefit out of education because they were a rare currency at that time and they did not need to struggle to find a job. The country was still less congested, they were needed and the value of our currency was much higher than now which facilitated financial growth for this group.

With time; more schools and universities were established, education was made obligatory for both genders, public schools made it possible for lower classes of the society to send their children to school. With passing years; the population increased significantly and at the same time the value of the currency was reduced.

In the last 20 years of this country's life, we have witnessed changes take place and we have proved that we are capable to adapt no matter what the circumstances were. Jordan was exposed to critical circumstances without having any infrastructure to adapt, yet the whole country and its people proved one more time that Jordanians are survivors.

One of these changes was that most of the people are educated with at least the first university degree, and just like any rule in this world; more supply means less demand and this is exactly what happened to our generation; we came at a time where there is no significant need or demand for our certificates; we now resemble those who had no education so 30 or 40 years ago.

What could be the solution? Stop people from pursuing higher education and move more towards technical professions?

Isn't it a valid point that the education fees are getting higher to push those who cannot afford it to learn something handy? Maybe it is a message to all those middle and lower class or even poor people to take their children out of schools and pushing them towards workshops and technical training centers to learn a profession that sends the individual earlier into the workforce.

To tell you the truth; I really don’t find anything wrong with this approach; if a person is not into physics, math and chemistry, why not learn something he would benefit from and give back to his family and the society as a whole. Instead of wasting the years on learning things he/she will never like or comprehend; isn't it easier if they shift towards practical education and save themselves and their folks time and money?

Yes, everyone has the right to get education, I am not defying that, but what if this education will be all wasted if this particular someone was not good at it or did not find anything to do with it when he/she graduates?

Yesterday; I read a post by the caller; she was talking about all these young people dreaming of leaving their countries to a place that would provide them with a better opportunity to work and make money, but couldn't it have been easier for some of these people to learn something that would give them the same if not a better opportunity in their own countries?

How do we manage to land good jobs in a place where everyone is educated? How can someone accept to be paid pennies after he/she worked so hard and studied harder for over 16-20 years? What is the solution?

The way I see it, it is no longer special or extraordinary to have a university degree; 30 years ago; a university graduate was someone people looked up to and youngsters saw as a role model. These days; we are like everyone else, we are all educated.

What sets the records straight is how sophisticated people are. The problem with us is that we don’t read and no, newspapers are not considered reading material!

What makes technicians, carpenters, electricians, mechanics, painters … etc. thought less of, is that when they leave school, they ditch reading and they do not develop themselves intellectually; they stop at that point and never grow up. What everyone must realize is that being sophisticated has nothing to do with being educated. Although it is easier for an educated person to grow into becoming sophisticated; it is not impossible for the uneducated to do that as well; all they need is the desire, willpower, determination and persistence and then they will become extraordinary with no doubt.

We all get these annoying chain letters that doom us with bad luck if we don’t keep the letter moving. We get the same email many times because it seems that all our friends remember us with a simple forwarded message.

I really don’t mind much when the message is nice and sometimes brings a smile or a good laugh; however; some of these messages are becoming really annoying and those who initiate them try to make the reader feel a bit guilty if he/she cuts the chain and stops it in its tracks.

For example; I get these letters with nice Islamic messages, but at the end of the message, I find a disguised threat that says: if you are too good to read and pass this message, maybe you are not worthy of the rewards that you will gain if you do! How did these people live before the email era? What did they use to forward chain letters? Regular mail, registered mail or courier services?

Sometimes these messages are nothing more than a hoax email that spreads like fire in hay, and usually these kinds of messages are about famous characters or companies or just plain urban legends that hold no objective whatsoever; you scroll down the piles and piles of email addresses that are included from previous forward processes, and when you finally reach the end of the letter, it is a small message that dooms your with bad fortune and loss of all your life luck if you stop this letter from reaching the world.

It always amazed me how some people find the time and energy to create and start such chain letters; where do they get the material from? I am not talking about those who forward, I am talking about those who create and initiate.

The web is a wide source that can give information and images about almost anything, and with the new emerging technologies; you can find clips and send it to your friends list and so on.

We have seen groups created on MSN, Yahoo and others, and we have been sent many letters that were originally created by group administrators with an invitation to join at the end of the letter. I have to admit that some of these messages have good content but some others are just a pure waste of time.

When blogging picked up in our part of the world, we have seen fellow bloggers fall in the trap of "copy and paste"; they used to copy the content of these email letters and paste it in a post on their blogs. We have talked a lot about such bloggers and advised others that for your blog to be genuine; you have to stay away from the "copy and paste" trap.

What is happening now is the complete opposite; the chain letters creators have found a rich material in blogs; and I am receiving chain letters with content I have already seen and know that one of my fellow bloggers has actually written that.

Last night, as I was checking my email; I got an email that has images I have seen on Sabbah's blog. Another email contains the poem that Mysterious Eve wrote for the child Ahmad who died in the Israeli aggression last week, and as if that is not enough; I get the same poem but translated to English. Another time; I got an email with many pictures taken from Talasim and they still hold the logo.

Where is the respect for people who come up with these posts? Why don’t people respect copyrights and get permission from authors before they steal their material? This is stealing and I don’t think that it can be called something else.

Maybe it is time for those emailers to step aside and have mercy on our inboxes that become full because of these forwarded letters that have content we have already seen on blogs and by their own original authors; will you please stop the redundancy and give us a break?

We keep hearing companies repeating that one of their strengths is that they listen to their clients, but do they really hear what they are telling them? Do they care that sometimes what the client wants to buy is not exactly what they want to sell?

In all the management books I read; it is mentioned that to be a good leader you have to listen with empathy. I remember that during one of the courses that I have taken a couple of years ago, the instructor was this elderly guru who has developed many companies and helped others make it; he told us that God has given us two ears and one mouth because it is wiser to listen more than we talk; that’s called wisdom.

In sales courses I have learned that selling is not about talking and good salespeople are not those who talk a lot; great salespeople are those who listen to their clients and eventually give them what they need.

It is unfortunate that when people are listening to you, they are actually not listening to understand; they are listening to respond and that means they are thinking of their next response and not comprehending what you are saying; that’s why we get engaged in conversations that are unsatisfying and more often than not, they end with no result at all.

Have you ever thought about this? Could it be that people fail in negotiations because they fail to listen? Could it be that we keep losing clients because we don’t really listen to their needs? Are we obsessed with what we sell that we completely ignore what people are actually looking to buy?

These are all valid scenarios and maybe we are subconsciously screwing up our opportunities because we suck at this simple skill; listening. We believe that our way is ultimately the right way and no matter how others try to describe their way of thinking, they will never e able to convince us, because like us, they don’t listen.

Companies wonder why they are losing clients, managers are always shocked that they are losing employees because they think that they are the best managers and they give their employees everything they ask for, but do they really? How could that be the case if they are not even prepared to listen to their internal customers? When will they see that it is not “my way or the high way” any more; talents are very hard to find and it is even harder to retain them especially with the severe brain drain that our country is suffering from.

Why don’t we at least try to understand the other point of view? Why should there be a dominant opinion over others? Who said everyone must see the world from the same angle? When will we start listening to what others are trying to say?

If we think deeper, we will find that when spouses have problems, it is because they don’t listen to each other, and it is like a conflict where there should be a winner and a loser; if you ever read John Gray’s “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” you would understand what I a talking about here. Same applies between parents and children, professors (teachers) and students, managers and employees, leaders and followers, even between friends. The everlasting struggles that keep us thinking without any result, it causes fights and hot debates, when will people understand that it does not necessarily mean that I am against you if I don’t agree with what you believe in? could this happen one day???

We have a family relative that was diagnosed with breast cancer over nine years ago. At the time; she was told by doctors that she will not last six months but her desire to live and raise her young children was way stronger than cancer cells.

She went through all available treatments to lengthen her stay with her kids and she had undergone different surgeries, sacrificing many things for the greater cause that kept haunting her ideas; all she thought about was her youngest daughter that was less than one year old.

She kept fighting and struggling, but the cancer cells kept coming back in different forms and hitting new organs of her fragile body; yet she never lost hope, faith or determination to keep on living.

She was told that her cancer cells were one of the worst kinds out there and they will keep coming back. Her trips back and forth to the hospital have become so common to her and her kids who accompanied her and made sure they understood every word told to them by doctors; they wanted to be there for their mother as she is struggling to be there for them.

In the midst of all this turmoil, she loses her husband and she is left alone to struggle through life and sickness. The responsibility of kids’ welfare has doubled overnight and she is now terrified to die because then her kids would have no one in this world and she just could not let that happen.

She kept her brave fight and overcame cancer at one point only to be beaten by it at another; it won’t leave her alone and it kept coming back in different forms till it took over and there was no more energy to fight it or overcome it.

Nine years after the first diagnosis; she was finally sent home to spend her last days with her kids. She can no longer move or take care of herself; her legs are already dead, her arms are following and she cannot swallow. Her daughters move her and change her position in bed; they clean and apply medication on her burned skin and the only thing they hear coming from her mouth are her prayers to Allah to take her to him.

Tonight; I saw her daughter and she was in tears telling us how she and her brothers and sisters are watching their mother die every day. She faints for several hours and comes back thinking that she just blinked and they no longer can give her medication because she is unable to swallow and doctors tell her that food goes to the cancer cells and does not benefit her in any way.

The reason I am posting about this is to ask you to pray for her and ask Allah to bless her with his mercy and forgiveness. May Allah have mercy on all of us; it is true that you don’t know the value of health until you have lost it.