Too Sad to Speak

I've been trying to write this post for the past three days but I didn't know how to start or what to write about exactly. So much is going on and I'm too sad to speak. But when I finally decided to speak out and started to type, the electricity went off! So have to complete this on paper now and copy it to the blog later.

The setting: - My room at midnight. I'm sitting in bed holding my diary book and a pencil to write. The room is dark, and there is no enough light for writing or reading coming from the famous Iraqi "Lala" [lantern]! I turned on the radio to break the silence of the night. I'm listening to Radio Nawa, one of the so many Iraqi radio stations which started broadcasting after the war. The station is playing the song "Foug Al-Nakhal" for Nathum Al-Ghazali, a famous Iraqi old singer.

There is war out there!

In the last three days, I used to wake up every morning to shocking and horrifying news. It all started on Wednesday, and I'm afraid that it won't stop! On Wednesday morning, we all heard the news of the damaged holly Golden Shrine in Samarra. I was shocked and didn’t believe the news until I saw it on T.V. some hours later as there was no electricity in the morning hours. Mom mesmerized before T.V. waiting the news, and I mesmerized at the computer checking the web and newspapers for photos and more details.

I first read in Washington Post that eight Sunni mosques were attacked after spreading the news of the damaged shrine, but the number suddenly rose on T.V. to reach 129 mosques, and them it raised even more! Could this be real?! When someone looks at the situation for the first moments he can think that attacking the mosques is an angry reaction from the Shiites after damaging the Shrine. But the truth is far away from that. It's planned well and played well this time! However, one thing I'm sure of is that the ones who damaged the Shrine are the same ones who attacked the mosques. Terrorists, insurgents or whatever you want to call them who did this terrible thing are trying to bring the country to civil war. Lebanon suffered a terrible civil war for fifteen years, and it seems that Iraq is becoming like Lebanon more and more everyday!

More news started to spread in Baghdad the next day about people taken from their houses in the middle of the night by men in black and shot to death in the streets! Who are those men in black?! I don't know if those news were all true or just some rumors to cause sectarian conflicts between the Iraqis, but some of this is really happening in Iraq. The situation got out of control!

On Thursday morning, I woke up feeling so gloomy after the previous day's bloody events, and I followed my Mother and sister to the garden to have our breakfast. Everything seemed so dark and we couldn't stand it inside home anymore. We tried to start a new day. Mom asked me if I remember Atwar Bahjat, the Iraqi reporter who was reporting from Samarra all time the day before. I said yes I remember her, and that she was teaching one of my cousins at school sometime before the war. I was shocked when Mom told me that she was killed! They found her dead with other two assistants who were with her. She was reporting from Samarra all the time during the previous day, everyone followed her reports. She used to wear a golden necklace with Iraq's map on in, and she used to show it on her all the time. I have a similar one and I wear it all the time as well. She graduated from my same university and college but from a different department. She studied Arabic language and literature. She was so brave and she risked her life to go to the dangerous places to tell the truth to the whole world right from the scene. She is a victim of terrorism, brutality and conflicts in the country. May she rest in peace.

Now as I'm writing this, I hear gunshots out there. Baghdad has become a city of ghosts. But even in the city of ghosts there are some ghosts walking down the streets, while in Baghdad even ghosts are afraid to go out!! It was called The Land of Peace. How ironic is that! Where is the government in all of this? It's nowhere to be seen. It even failed in protecting the dead people in their Shrines!!

I am a true Morbid Smile now! I'm watching my country being destroyed little by little, its holly places are attacked severely, and its people are killing each other. A great civilization of more than 7000 years is going to waste. It's the country that once was!

I started writing this at about 12:30 midnight, and now it’s 2:30. The radio is still on. I kept switching the stations and the gunshots are still in the open air out there in the city of hell. The radio voice cannot swallow the sounds of explosions anymore.

And at the end, I woke up in the morning to screams and cries of my neighbors. Their old sick father died in his bed last night!

Are you still asking why I am a "Morbid" Smile??

Hear Me Now!

For everyone here, listen to me now!

Then, as part of our continuing series on higher education in Iraq, we hear from an Iraqi woman who recently graduated from Baghdad University. (that's my part!)

A Multi-entries Post

Note: This is last night’s post. I couldn’t post it then cuz I got disconnected from the internet!

Hello everyone,

It seems that I must have a problem with the blogsphere every now and then! This time I can’t view my blog, and if I manage to view the page, I can’t get to the comments’ section... I’m writing this on Word document and will publish it via Word for Blogger.. Luckily, I get the comments on email so I could read them. Anyways, the internet stopped now for some reason but I’ll continue writing this not knowing when to post it. It’s a multi-entries post, so you might read a lot of crap here! I don’t know what’s going on with bloggers these days, but it seems that they are not posting that much recently. And 24 is right; we are tired of everything and nothing! Or maybe Muse is on vacation for some time now;)

I finished another story with media so far. The first one was the Diary project with the German Magazine which I will post next month. The reason why I’m waiting till next month is because the diary text will be published in the magazine’s issue of March. So, to be polite, I must wait until they publish it and then I’ll post it all here in seven entries for one week. I hope you will like it! The other story is with War News Radio. I talked over the phone with the U.S. for two times during the last week. Last time was actually yesterday, and for me it was better than the first time. It was the first time my parents hear me speak English! I don’t know why, but I always feel kind of shy to speak English in front of my parents or people I know! I have a very tiny experience of speaking English. When I was at college, I didn’t speak English that much during class cuz the professors did most of the work. They used to talk and discuss the subject of that lecture, and students used to write down some notes, and very few professors on very few occasions asked us to discuss or answer some questions. But for me, that didn’t really count! The real times for me were in the Fulbright interview which lasted for about half an hour or less and on the phone with the radio reporter for 35 minutes and then another 38 minutes the next week.

But I do speak English with myself if this can be counted! I’m not a freak, and I don’t know if other people do this too, but I think that I talk with myself more than with other people! I also noticed that most of my dreams are in English language. It started when I was in sixth grade in High School. My first dream in English language was about Seinfeld! I dreamed that I was one of Seinfeld team and that it was night time and I was standing in a street with Jerry, Kremer and George. And we were heading to McDonalds when we saw Elaine, she looked at me with surprise and said “American?!”… And I replied “American!”... I wasn’t a fan of Seinfeld at that time and I didn’t know why I dreamed of Seinfeld and McDonalds! But that was an American dream for sure! :)

So, today when Dad came back home from work, he asked me to put the T.V. channel on Saddam’s trial. I totally forgot about that trial and didn’t know that it was on T.V. today! I don’t watch TV that much, and don’t watch the news and political reports at all. I’m just sick of it. But what I saw on TV was so shocking. Was it Barazan sitting in the court hall in his underwear on the floor or was I hallucinating??! This is a true mockery. Those folks should be judged immediately without prosecution. They didn’t try their victims so why should we waste so much time to try them? And what are they doing in return? Nothing except for making strikes against the court or don’t know what! Later on another channel, there was an interview with Raghad, Saddam’s daughter, on the phone. My father and I really laughed when we heard what she was talking about. She kept saying that her father is a hero and bla bla bla. The anchorman asked her if she wanted to go back to Iraq someday, and she said that she would come back home as soon as Iraq is back like before, Saddam’s Iraq as she called it! Yea, you wish!

And at the end, happy Valentine’s Day for everyone :)

Morbido!

Nonsense, nonsense... And then Nonsence!

Hello world..

As you all see, the pink template is gone! Something wrong happened to the blog as usual, and I've lost the backup file cuz I had to format the computer.. and now back to the old "face".. I even guess that this one is better and even faster! So, some people were asking what is it with pink and girls! Actually I don't know but could it really be cuz of Barbie as I said that earlier?! I don't like pink myself.

Anyways, I accomplished some things in the last ten days; I talked with the reporter of War News Radio on the phone. We tried to talk on Skype for several time but it didn't work out, so we tried the phone lines and it worked finally! The phone call last for 35 minutes. It was a great time for me and I had so much fun though I stumbled alot at first! I even had some fatal grammar mistakes, and everytime I did a mistake I used to say "Stupid! correct it", but then I just went on..

I'm going to talk on the phone with U.S.A. again for the radio next week, and you are going to hear me after that! I'll post a link when it's online.

On the other hand, I'm still studying for the GRE exam which will be on March, 11th. I feel myself so stupid when I read this book! Or are they using hard vocabulary?! I'm spending more and more time studying and practicing some drills. There is only one month left, wish me good luck, please.

One more silly accomplishement I did today; I could finally watch Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban! I had the DVD for more than two months now, but I could only get a DVD player and watch it today! I also have Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, but I'll watch it tomorrow. I will probably re-watch the first two parts by midnight (if there is electricity of course!).

I noticed lately that Iraqi bloggers are not posting that much these days (including me)! What's up guys?Common, write something here. Is it the electricity keeping you from getting online? Hey, we've been living with this for more than a decade now!

Hmmm.. I'm thinking of undoing this post now. It seems so meaningless and disordered. I could give a lecture on How To Crack The Vocabulay Section in Your GRE Exam, but I'm sure no-one wants to read such empty stuff! Besides, there is nothing else in my mind currently.. Pardon my foolishness ;) Good Night all


Morbido!

Love at First Sight

Is there such a thing as love at first sight?
That's the question I used to ask
Until I laid eyes on you.
How is it possible to feel so much for a
stranger, a passerby?
Love has no limits, no color, no time.
That's when I realized I had fallen in love -
Love at first sight.

What do you think of love at first sight? Does it really exist or is it just a fantacy that we read in romantic tales where the two protagonists fall in love as soon as they catch each others' eyes? I have been asking myself this question for quite a long time> I heard many stories of this kind when I was at high school, and it was a real fun to hear and believe in such things. It happened to me once, actually. But no! I wasn't the one who fell in love with someone at first sight. It was him who did!

I was still at high school at that time, it was probably 1997. There used to be so many guys fooling around near my school and it happened that this guy saw me and started to get some info about me like most of the guys do here when they want to know something about a certain girl. But all his searches were in vain as I was new in the school and nobody even knew my name. I didn't know anything at first but he revealed it after about one year during the school's final exams. But how did he reveal it? No, he didn't have the courage to come and talk to me. He couldn't do it in front of school among the girls, and my house was in the same street where the school was so he couldn't follow me in order to talk either..

He found a girl whom he knew and asked her to send me a verbal message on his behalf expressing his "love"! I first did't believe it, I didn't even know that he existed by that time and I asked the girl to point him to me if he happened to be near the school...

Anyways, nothing of that love could work out cuz I was too young for love. I was only 13. He sent his Mother and sister after some years to ask for my hand but his request was rejected cuz I was still too young to be engaged.

I see that most of the love-at-first-sight stories happen during high school age. That's why some people don't believe in it. It could also happen during college life, but actually I don't know another story to tell here! :)

Now, remember the poll I had at my blog's sidebar? It said "What do you think of love at first sight?", and the answer choices where:

1. Reality.
2. Fantacy.
3. There is no such thing.
4. I don't know!

The poll got 60 votes when I deleted it, and the result was as in the image bellow..

30 people out of 60 say that love at first sight exists. I'm one of those people. I don't say this cuz of that teenagehood's story, but cuz I believe in it even if I haven't experienced it yet. It's true that you might love someone at first sight but then it turns out to be not a true love at all, but the same thing can happen when you know and love someone for a long period of time and then discover that there is no love in the first place! Anything can be possible in love; you can love someone you don't know ( like in the poem above ), or you can fall in love with a friend which happens quite often ( like Monica and Chandler in F.R.I.E.N.D.S. for example!), or you can simply meet someone for some time and then fall in love with him\her.

Why some people think it's a fantacy? Maybe because they haven't seen it in real life, or maybe because they think it's an irrational feeling.. or for any other reason. It's real because it happens in real life, because it's one of the ways to fall in love. You may say that it's a crazy way to fall in love like this, but let me tell you that love itself is crazy! It might be considered a fantacy because it suddenly transferes the person from the real world to another magical one by one look from the "beloved" and put him in a fairy-tales world where everything is real, possible and easy to reach.

You might ask if I'm in love wish someone! Well, I'm not in love with anyone yet, but with love itself.

Well, this is my concept about the matter and I hope to read your concepts and opinions as well. Love is a universal feeling which every living person go through at least once in a life time. I know you have wonderful stories to tell, so I'm waiting :) And there are readers who have never left a comment in the blog, PLEASE do it this time!

Morbido...