All About My Trip to Jordan

I know, the story has become an old one, and maybe boring to some of you.. but it still worths posting!


First Time…

So, I didn’t have enough time to write about my trip to Amman. I should mention here that this is the first time I get out of Iraq in my whole life, and it's been my first time I get on plane but sure not the last time!

In my first visit to Amman I went to movies for the first time in my life. There used to be many movie theatres in Iraq before the war but I was too young and didn’t have that interest in movies. And we all know that those theatres were closed after the war. So far, I watched two movies: Pirates of the Caribbean II with Attawie, Anarki and The Kid, and Superman Returns with Mom and sister. Other movies on DVD were The Da Vinci Code, Pride and Prejudice, Incredible Cruelty, Scary Movie4 and Zathura.

I hated the movie of The Da Vinci Code a lot; it's nothing like the novel and is missing a lot of the information and details in the book. After watching it, Attawie and I decided to reproduce and redirect the movie, change the actors and actresses, put more conversations and action like in the book, and probably turn it into a T.V. show if it gets too long!!

I'm having so much fun here although we're going to almost the same places everyday. I don’t feel homesick at all except for missing my father so much for he couldn’t come with us to Jordan. I mean, there's nothing to miss there anymore cuz it all reminds me of pain, lack of security, daily agony and the smell of death everywhere in Baghdad. Surely, these are not things to miss anywhere! I miss our old Baghdad though, and there are things that remind me of it here in Amman; the lights of the night down the streets with people walking around here and there. The night breeze of Amman reminds me of the autumn and early spring in Baghdad when we could have our dinners at the restaurants on the Tigris side. Ol' happy days those were that could never come back!

A fourth bloggers meeting took place on Saturday. We were ten this time: Anarki, The Kid, Baghdad Treasure, 24 Steps to Liberty, Zeyad, Nabil, Micho, Attawie and I. the tenth person was Attawie's sister. This time the meeting wasn't at the mall as the previous meetings. One of the bloggers chose a nice café shop and we all agreed on the place and time. Reading their blogs for over a year now I didn't feel that I was meeting them for the first time. It was like meeting old friends and having so much fun with them. Time passed so quickly that we (the girls in the group) had to go back home on sometime. We planned to meet again, but this time to go on a small picnic.

We talked about many things; about blogs, current news and points of views about political issues, about Baghdad and news from home and about our future plans. I think that most of us, if not all, don't want to go back to Iraq. At least for the current time. It's sad to know that educated people are fleeing the country for their lives leaving nothing but destruction and tears back at home, but there's nothing to do about it. We're seeking life somewhere else other than home cuz we've had enough and decided to want to live like other people. It's sad and not easy for me to say this and I don’t really want to admit it but that’s the hard truth.

The first bloggers' picnic...

That’s what Baghdad Treasure named it, or a chips picnic according to Attawie's description. As much as it was a simple picnic, it was awesome! There were Micho, Attawie and her sister, BT, 24 Steps to Liberty, Anarki and his friend, Zeyad, Nabil and finally me. The Kid didn’t come cuz he was having cold. My mother and Attawie's grandma were with us as well. We set the place and time at Al-Hussein Park on Tuesday, 8th of August. We brought chips (Lay's and Mr. Chips), nuts, mini cake roles and Pepsi. Though we didn't eat everything we brought, there's no picnic if there's no food.

We chose a place on the sidewalk as our resting spot and we started talking, singing, eating and laughing out loud. Nabil played guitar for us and we sang songs for Metallica, Hotel California, and other songs. When it came to singing old Iraqi songs, though no-one said it loudly, I looked in the eyes of each and every one of them and saw that they all missed home; the country that once we had! And since we are all fans of F.R.I.E.N.D.S and have seen many many episodes of the show and know their songs and quote them by heart, we sang Phoebe's famous "Smelly Cat" song. Now I know that every time I watch Phoebe singing on that show I'll remember this happy day.

It's ironic that we all live in Baghdad yet never had the courage to think about meeting there! But the chance brought us all to Jordan for different reasons in order to make this happen. I can say that those days were among the happiest days of my life; I had the chance to go out with people and to have new friends whom I can share everything with. And the most important thing was that we all are of almost the same background, have the same interests and strife for living normally like all young people in the world.


Does bad luck accompany Iraqis everywhere?? … Possibly!

Of all days of the week, the Museum at Al Hussein Park closes on Tuesday (the day we went there)! After walking for about half an hour in the humid and chilling weather to the museum, we found a big label says "Museum is closed on Tuesdays". We didn’t have the chance to get in there and see the stuff inside, but we didn’t want our walk trip to the place to be unfruitful so we took our "back" photo in front of the museum.

"The Museum is closed on Tuesdays"

Birds of a feather flock together!

Our meetings didn't end this far, and it's still going on till this moment, and every time we all met we planned for a next meeting. The reason is obvious; it was fun to do so, and for me it feels like I know them all for a long time. On Thursday after the picnic day we went to Mecca Mall, walked around the place and got to the arcade center and played table hockey and foosball. We played in teams in which BT and I always lost against the other teams! Well, I admitted to them that was the first time I played those games :P … The photos we took here were so much fun that I keep laughing every time I look at them, but they are not to be posted on the blog! Later on that day, we met I Was There with his family in one of the cafés at the mall.

I would call this one.. "Bloggers United"
??!


I didn’t go to historical places… I didn’t have enough time for that, besides we were told that Iraqis were not accepted in some of those places! However, I went to the Romanian relics which were located inside Amman. There were only me, my Mother and sister. We didn’t stay there for a long time cuz the place was rather small and there wasn't that much to see. It's not like the historical places we have in Iraq in which you can spend days looking at wonderful things. Here are some photos we took…

At night of the same day, I met the bloggers for one last time. It was at Bel Mondo café again. We sat there, had coffee, took photos, talked about many things, mostly blogging. Attawie suggested that we all tell the story of our blogs, how we discovered the blogsphere and why we started to write.

The next morning (Sunday), I came back to Baghdad alone, and it's been about two weeks for me in Baghdad now. There was only one day separating me from meeting Melantrys, and two days from attending the wedding party of Attawie's sister! The reasons why I had to cut short my vacation I come back home? Can't tell now but rather on the right time!

Bottom line: I had twenty wonderful days in Amman in which I met my closest friend after three years of non-meetings, I went to so many places, I met many new friends and had so much fun with them, and the most important thing, I "practiced" life!

More photos from Jordan...

Amman at night

And in the morning..

From a museum

On the way back home to Baghdad...


Down the dangerous airport road in Baghdad

Somewhere in Baghdad where a black rag annoucing the death of a person, a martyr, it says

Across the Tigris River

End of the journey! :P

Meetings in Jordan

It's been a week since I came to Jordan with my Mother and sister. The trip to the Baghdad airport was a hectic one as usual, and it took us more than five hours to get on plane, we were even asked to take off our shoes at some point inside the airport! Nobody liked to do so but we just didn’t have any other choice. We reached Amman in the afternoon, and the weather was amazingly different from that in Baghdad; so cool and refreshing. And of course, as soon as I got a cell phone I called Attawie and made plans for the next day.

The first thing I noticed in Amman is the hill-like streets. There is barely a flat land here. Walking is more like climbing up or down a hill. This is probably the only thing that makes me feel I'm out of Iraq. Other things make feel at home are the wide range of Iraqi people, the use of Iraqi accent and Iraqi songs and the famous Iraqi restaurants which opened new places in Amman and all are labeled "From Baghdad to Amman" to indicate that these restaurants are Iraqis or serve Iraqi food. So far, I've only heard the taxi driver speaking the Jordanian accent. The other accent I hear down the street and many places in the Iraqi accent! Amman looks like an extension to Baghdad!!

The next day, Wednesday, was the first meeting of some of the bloggers in Amman. There were Hala_S, Anarki, The Kid, Zeyad, Attawie and me. My sister was around but she was exploring the place with Mom. It was fun. We talked about blogs, Baghdad and other stuff, and sure a few political topics!

The second meeting was on Thursday. Anarki, The Kid, Attawie and I went to movies and watched Pirates of the Caribbean II. Being a big fan of Johnny Depp, I'd say that the movie was so much fun and Jack Sparo was hilarious! After the movie we went out to the mall and walked around for hours and took many photos (we haven't decided yet on which photos to post, so you have to wait if you want to see them! :P)

The third meeting was on Sunday. There were Anarki, a friend of his, Attawie and me, besides Mom and sister, Attawie's sister and their grandmother. We called each other and decided to meet down a street where there were some summer celebrations with so many people walking around. Unluckily, there were no activities of any kind on that day! Not even the usual fireworks. But we enjoyed the good weather and meeting so many Iraqi people in there. I'll leave the other details to the rest of the gang to post about ;)

Having an internet connection at home is a real bliss! Now I have to pay constant visits to the internet café everyday in order to check my email and the blog. I wrote this post offline and have it on a flash disk to post it next time I get online.

A fourth meeting is being under planning now!



Cheers everyone!

And So Waiting Has Finally Ended..

No more waiting, people! After a whole year of idleness, the so great and wonderful scholarship program rewarded me with "UNSUCCESSFUL TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS YEAR'S PORGRAM" . I am so angry that it overcomes my sadness. The light at the end of the tunnel has gone off.

Why the hell did they give me the grant if they didn't paln to work hard to addmit me to a university! I don't feel that I want to apply again next year, but my parents are telling me to do so. Just thinking of how I should go through that all over again makes me sick. I've been rejected by seven universities for reasons I shall never know, and there's no wonder that it might happen again next time. I'm shocked at their inaccuracy and insensitiveness. They kept delaying the process untill I ran out of time, then they came apologizing saying "Sorry, but we won't send out you packets to universities anymore! Time has ended", as if people's destiney means nothing to them!

They tell you "once you get the grant there will be no problem at all", "you'll definetly go to the U.S."... so, and so... Then what? They tell you "Sorry dear, but getting a placement is not garanteed untill the last moment of the process". They should have mentioned this in their website instead of making sure to every desperate grantee that their biggest dream will surely come true!

Nonesense.

I have wasted many opportunities for the sake of this one, I've lost a year of my life, a year that will never be made up again. Gosh! Just thinking how I spend the past year locking myself up at home trying to stay safe cuz I thought I'd have the greatest time very soon. How silly of me, and how cruel of them!

And now what's the next step? This I don't know. I have to make plans again, probably find some other "little" dreams and try to work them out instead of my old big dreams that faded the way mirage fades on a dead land.

I have so much rage inside that I can't put on words, so I'd better go before I start swearing and cursing...

To The Airport and Back

So, I said yesterday that I would be flying to Amman with Mom and sister this morning. At first I didn't think that I would be able to make it with them cuz of all my waitings for the Fulbright stuff, but after the last unpleasant updates I got I decided not to waste my time anymore with this and start to have some fun.

I packed whatever I needed to take with me and asked Attawie if I need to get this and that and what else to pack.. bla bla bla... I bought the plane ticket the next day after I decied to go. Somehow, my parents managed to get me the ticket on the same day of my Mom and sister's flight. It's hard to do so now cuz all flights are reserved till mid August, but as what The Kid said, "the wise and the willing finds his way!" ;) One thing though, my flight was supposed to take off at 4:30, while Mom and sister's flight on 2:30. I didn't see a problem in that but Mom said that we'd find a way to switch places with a passenger so that I'd be on the same plane with them.

Anyways, Friday morning came and we got ready and waited for the taxi driver to drive us to the airport. We had to get there early before the Friday stroll ban which starts on 11 P.M. Though most of the road we took was a high way, I noticed that it was a hellish and deserted one. It was as if we were passing by a battle front, there was nothing but us, checkpoints with armed soldiers, barbed wires and the remaining framgments of bombings on the street's pavement. Oh, and alot of garbage!

For me and my sister it was fun to be on the road as we haven't been out for ages, but Mom was more anxious and was praying and focusing on the road. Well, she's right. After all this is the Airports's road which is famous of its deadly accidents! We reached the checkpoint, the one with the sniffing dogs. The time I saw it I thought of starting to count the checkpoints, but alas, we already passed by a countless number of them, so I quit the thought.

On another checkpoint where we had to get out of the car and have our bags searched, we were asked to have our passports checked as well. The guards and some officers were trying to be nice and funny with people to ease their fear of the road, dogs and everything else. When Mom asked one of the guards where to check our passports, he said loudly "Ma'am, go to that dumb guy, he'll check them", and he pointed to a guy who was smiling at us. Mom felt very sorry for this guy and wondered how did he get to work in this place if he can't speak. He took our passports, motioned to us to take off the sunglasses so that he can see if our faces matched the ones in the passports' photos. After finishing, he lift a thumb up to indicate all was ok, smiled and said "Have a nice journey!". Later we found out that he was playing this sort of candid camera thing to make people laugh in this scary place.

Then there were some other checkpoints and more dogs sniffing suitecases. Two American dudes helped us with one of our bags which was a very heavy one. We said "Thanks" and they motioned "Not at all".. then finally, we're at the Airport's main hall. At the time we got there bomibings started rocking the place. Sister and I stared at each other with fear, yet laughing. Mom, having been to the airport before, said that we'd hear much of that during the coming time. The driver, who was with us all the way long, suggested that we check the stamps on our passports as they have been renewd lately. Thank God we did this early as it turned that we had a problem with them!

Dad renewd the passports about two weeks ago before he went to Germany on a business trip. So we thought that we were all up to date with it. But it tunred out that a new stamp has been used just a few days ago which we don't have on our passports, and that prevented us from traveling! Time was 10:40 and we had only 20 minutes left for the cerfew, so we had to act fast and go back home. Otherwise we would be stuch inside the airport till 7 P.M. with nothing to do but envying people who were happily leaving.

The road back home was worse. I had nausia cuz of the heat outside and my empty stomach. More checkpoints were filling the streets by this time, motioning for cars to drive faster before blocking the streets. The clock ticked 11 P.M. and we were still on the road. A few cars were stopped near some checkpoints already, and we were afraid that we'd be forced to stop as well. But we were allowed to pass cuz we were women in the car and they wouldn't lest us stay out till the stroll ban is over at 7 P.M.

We made it home safely at last. Sister and I were laughing at it but Mom was angry. The trip is postponed till next week. My shoulders got stiffened from holding and pulling our suitecases down the road. I thought I would be seeing Attawie today, we haven't met since October 2003 when she came to college the last time before leaving to Jordan. We've already made plans for tonight as she invited me to a party. I was going around teasing my cousins for going to see two Iraqi singers; Hussam Al-Rsam -that is a big hit now- and Kadhim Al-Sahir, a very famous Iraqi singer, in that party.

So... That was my trip to the Airport and back!

At Stake

This is an update about my University placement in the U.S.

I received an email from the Fulbright office this morning after I sent them many emails asking about my condition.. Well, the news are bad and not so optimistic!

Five universities have rejected me so far, and there's still one last university whom they are waiting a final asnwer from. If their answer will be the same as the previous ones, then I will have no place in the Fulbright anymore, and will not participate in the program.. and will not go to the U.S.

I'm still waiting for that final answer from the last university. However, the IEE Institution itself is not optimistic about it.

I'm devastated here and can't stop crying.

While Waiting...

So, it's been a long time since I put a real post here. A few things happened during this time, and I tried to post more than once but every time I kept postponing till the topic became out of date. I came across an interesting article in a local newspaper some weeks ago and decided to talk about it on the blog. It was about ice cream in Iraq and how Iraq was among the first founders of ice cream. Well, my laziness got me in losing that newspaper! Mom found that we had too many newspapers and magazines which we kept during the past three years that now we have no place for the new magazines and papers, so she decided to get rid of them and put them all (well not all, we kept some of them as they had articles and poems written by Dad) in a big plastic bag. I saw the bag in the garage for three days and kept telling myself that "tomorrow I'll search for that article among those newspapers in that bag". But because of myself that never quits the habit of postponing doing things I lost the article when I came out to the garage one "late" day and wanted to start my search among the trash. The trash car came few days before that day and took it away.

Well. I read the article only one time and there were many details about places and names where the ice cream was first made. So I can't write it now, and don't know which newspaper was that in order to search it online. Bottom line is: never postpone the work of today until tomorrow!

Dah! As if I will really listen!

I am supposed to leave to the U.S. at the end of this month, BUT I haven't got my placement nor visa yet! I'm the only Fulbrighter left without a placement and still waiting till now. This just makes me so frustrated and worried. There were times when I wished if I didn't apply to the scholarship cuz I felt that I was wasting time just waiting without having fun or even doing something useful to myself. It's been a year and one week since I officially graduated, and this whole year has past without me doing anything at all but staying at home filling applications and sending them online, attending interviews and luncheons and having lame exams for the sake of an M.A. degree.

One of the reasons I haven't posted for so long is that I noticed that in almost every post I complained about something that was bothering me, and this is not something that people want to read on blogs that should be interesting. Add to it my concerns about my future which I feel is at stake! I was told that being a grantee doesn't assure me that I will really get to the States and start with my study there! There were still the obstacles of a University placement and Visa! Well, I was shocked when I heard this, and the person in charge confirmed it to me. At that point, my mind started thinking and jumping to some conclusions that being late in receiving any news from any university means that it's all gone! Or about to. I felt that I was hanged somewhere between earth and the sky, and that was horrible. The "what if" was killing me and I tried hard to avoid thinking negatively but I just couldn't. I started to study the available options in case there would be no placement for me but everything seemed so limited. It's not what I planned to do.

I hated answering phone calls of meeting people cuz every time I talk with a person he/she would ask "when are you leaving?", "what the hell are you doing here till now? Don't you want to escape here!" and I didn't have answers for these questions, I was just smiling all the time and say "soon". It was obvious that I myself wasn�t sure of that!
I promised before that I would announce about my whereabouts in the U.S. once I get there. But unfortunately, things have changed and I cannot do that anymore. It's true that I still don't know my destination there, but once it comes I will not be able to post it on the blog. That�s for my safety. It is why I said on the CBox several weeks ago that I had important news that I can't post and that I would send them on emails...

And during my endless waiting I'm playing this..

Reading this... I reached chapter 99 and will finish the book tomorrow...(teasing Attawie! :P)

I shoot a movie with my cousins at my grandparents' home last week. It started as a horror movie but somehow ended like a comedy. The story was about students living in one place where one of them is a killer. He kills the first victim and decides to kill the others in order to escape any interrogations, and then he persuades one of the students to be his partner and help him kill the others. Of course, the movie ends the same old classic way by defeating the evil. The killer was my uncle. I was the camerawoman but I also had a small scene where everyone laughed at my funny gestures! The director of the movie was one of my cousins and the soundtrack was an Iraqi song. The movie titled "Fear".


Keep your fingers crossed for Morbido!



P.S. Post published from Photobucket, hope it work out.

A Family's Tragedy

A seemingly happy family lives near my home was devastated a few days ago as a result of ignorance and alcohol. The father, A. who was the driver who used to drive me and my sister to college everyday for the last year, made a terrible mistake that lead to the end of his own family.
He was a drunkard man and we doubted if he had any education. He's got the most adorable the cutest two little daughters, his wife was very nice and lovely woman but he didn't know how to keep that treasure for good!
He was good with his two little daughters, but wasn't good with his wife all the time and he didn't treat her well. And many people in the neighborhood complained of his crazy actions and behaviors as he used to have some fights with the neighbors every now and then cuz of the generator one time and the kids the other time… One night he was drunk and the neighbor's generator disturbed him so he went out to his neighbors and started to shout and break the neighbor's windows and car! That was one famous accident which we heard right from him.
Like in every family, they had some problem. But this family's problems were worse. The parents were quarrelling most of the time that he used to beat her, threaten to divorce her and even kicked her out of the house with his two little girls one time. The fights happened when he was drunk; the next morning neighbors would try to make it up between them again. He even once decided to leave his wife and get married to a woman living in the same street, but luckily the woman refused cuz she knew his family and didn't want to be a reason of the the family's destruction. Though the father's continuous state of drunkard was the real destruction.
We used to know many things and details about what was going on with his family. He used to talk with mom and dad and tell them about his fights with his wife, and my parents were giving his advices all the time. He's got the most adorable and the cutest daughters and they were spending long times with me and my sister though we were way older than them.
Time passed and he was not our driver anymore, and we stopped seeing him in the neighborhood. A few days ago Mom and I passed by his house and we noticed that all the lights were off and the door was locked. We wondered why we no longer see him or his kids around. Then my Mom suggested that maybe things got worse between him and his wife and that maybe she couldn't take it anymore and asked for a divorce…
The news came rushing in my side of the neighborhood yesterday; it turned out that he divorced his wife several months ago and then he got married after three months. He went to his ex-wife's parents' house where she was with her two daughters in order to see them. But his ex's family never let him see the girls when he was angry or drunk. Until one day he got fed up with the situation, he took out his rifle and headed back to the parents' house. Angry and intoxicated, he shot the grandmother (ex-wife's mother) and killed her, killed his ex-wife and shot her brother!! But it didn't end this way. He went out of the house rushing back home, it's said that he fought with some of the neighbors there who were trying to stop him and some got injured. He drove his car along the highway with a crazy speed and it happened that there was a police checkpoint that started shooting at the car when he didn't stop and got him badly injured. The police, thinking that he was suicide-bomber, arrested him immediately and took him to hospital. A few hours later, some people recognized his car on the highway and called for his brother. After knowing the whole story, the police officers refused to give him back to his family. It's even suspected that he died.
Since we heard the news, Mom and I were thinking of his daughters all the time. Did they saw their father killing their Mom and Grandmother? Are they ever going to love him or forgive him one day? I feel very sad for the devastated family, and I feel even worse just to think of what is going to happen to the girl, who is going to take care of them. He could be a good man with a kind heart, but ignorance took a big deal of him that left him blinded with anger and irrationalism.
If he wasn't an ignorant man he would have realized that alcohol was destroying his family and destroying the human being within him. He could have done something to restore the peace inside his house to raise a wonderful family in a healthy environment, but he didn't know the gift he was given and he wasted it all that, and wasted his life.

I once posted a photo for one of his daughters who used to spend a lot of time in our house.


Morbido.

Hallucinations of Early Summer

Well, since now it's 666 which might be the end of the world, let me say little wishes before I vanquish! Is anybody going to watch The Omen tomorrow??

I wish if Tru Calling was real and existed in Iraq; she would have saved the lives of thousands of people who die everyday.
I wish if the Charmed sisters were real; they would have stopped the demons \ terrorists who kill innocents everyday.
I wish if the invisibility cloak was real; I could have moved freely in places without the fear of car bombs and explosions.
I wish I had wings and I could fly; I would escape the traffic jams. But I would end up like Icarus even if I don't fly too high cuz the heat of the sun in Iraq would melt the wax off my wings no matter what.
I wish if wishes would come true; the world would be a better place.
I wish if I know what the hell I'm talking about!!! I think I'm watching too much TV and reading too much fiction lately! Oh, did I mention that I'm reading The Da Vinci Code now? ..

The electricity has been off for about five days in my neighborhood. Half the region has electricity and the other half has not. I'm in the unlucky half. Some people said that the cable of this "half" was stolen or damaged... I don't know how can it be stolen, but I'm not surprised to hear such thing as everything is possible here! One day you might wake up in the morning and see the bricks of your house are gone! Anyway, the cable was fixed short time ago but the electricity is too low to turn on the air conditioning.

It's obvious that I'm hallucinating here. It's either Summer started to show its effects on me, or it's really the end of the world!!

Get Me Out

So, here I am, in the same timeless, most boring and most dangerous place in the world. I've been away because I have nothing to say or write about! The same days are repeating themselves, and the same monotonous things are happening everyday.

I'm hopless,
Helpless,
Angry,
Currently unhappy,
Simply, I feel like a hell burning inside of me.
I want to get out of here as soon as possible, yet the time seems endless for me! There are many different signs everyday telling me and my family to get out this country that once was.

For the first time since the war started, a motor-cycle exploded in the middle of the local market of my neighborhood. It killed 22 people, most of them were kids, and that just made me raged and hopeless. The explosion took place at about 9 P.M., so many people were there, mostly kids. It's true that it's a night time when everyone should be lockep up at home cuz of the night curfew, but shops would close at about 11 o'clock every night in my small region, so people would still be going out at night.

Thankfully, we were all at home that day. I begged Mom to go out and buy some stuff from the market but she kept telling me to postpon it to the next day. If we were there at that time, I would be writing this from Heaven by now. Or from Hell maybe!

We knew most of the people who died. One of them was a girl preparing for her wedding day which happened to be the next day! Three little brothers were inside a car waiting for the parent. One of them had his brain popped out of his head and died immedeatly, the two others lived but with a traumatic disease now. And many more...

The streets were closed, funerals were held in ever corner of the neighborhood, and people were all in black attending the funerals. Candles were lit in the explosion's place on the third day. I went there to see it; it was so sad. Seeing the place where I grew up in this state and knowing that people died their is heart breaking. The faces I've seen almost everyday since I was a little kid... They're no more.

I am out of thoughts and ideas. I've been trying to think of one good topic to write about but my head seems emptier than what I thought! I lost my Muse. All I can think of now is to "get out".

Forcast From Baghdad

On yesterday afternnon, a sudden and very quick sandstorm hit Baghdad. Everyone around the house was running trying to close all the windows and doors to prevent sand from getting inside the house! I tried to go out and take some photos to post them here but I couldn't go out cuz the sand was so thick and I couldn't breathe. Besides, I once heard that we should not use cameras in sandy weather cuz the sand would damage the lense... or something like that.


Anyway, this morning as I was checking the emails, I found a link with two photos for the same place in Baghdad taken before and during the storm. So I thought of posting them here.


Have a look at Baghdad's weather!

It's a good setting for a scary movie, I guess!!

The Devil, Bottle of Sause and Me!

NOTE: This post should have been published before the previous one, but there were problems with uploading the photos.

So i guess it's been more that a week since I last showed any life sign! I've been busy and kinda lazy. Busy going to college for some fun, busy shopping a laptop, digital camera, webcam, bluetooth and a flash disk! (it costed a fourtune!).. and I was also resting my eyes from PC and reading for a while.

Lazy for no reason :P

This is the first post I write from my new DELL laptop ;) oh by the way, the headache is gone at last. I figured out two reason which caused me that headache, but there another important one which I haven't noticed before; it was lack of water!! Yes, I forget to drink water. I'd be good if I could drink more than one glass of water aday!!

Well, I wasn't really sitting idle all the time, in fact I was coloring some pages. Remember those coloring pages we used to color when we were kids? I was doing exactly the same! And everyone at home was laughing at me... i was obsessed with drawing and coloring when i was a little kid, I had my papers, crayons and magic colors with me all the time wherever I went. So I thought of posting new ones here cuz I couldn't find the old ones I used to color. Moving from place to place with my family was a reason that I couldn't keep everything I had.

Some kids believed in crazy yet funny superstitions, and I was one of those kids who believed that the Devil was stealing my stuff!!! I remember one day when I was seven or eight years old, I was in the room with my sister and two of our relatives playing and having fun. One of the two relatives had her Barbie doll with her, and suddenly one of Barbie's shoes got lost somewhere in the room. We started to search on the floor but we couldn't find anything. Then I suddenly got this crazy idea and told them that the Devil stole the shoe! But how can we restore it now? The only idea I had in mind was to punish the devil and let him return the shoe back to us. So we started to jump and beat the floor as hard as we could thinking that the devil was hiding under the floor! And after sometime while we were still beating the ground, we saw Barbie's shoe in the other corner of the room. For me, that was an evidence that devil really took the shoe, we were playing in one corner of the room when the shoe was lost, and we found it in the other corner after we punished the devil for stealing the shoe from us!!!

I also believed that there were some evil souls in our house! I even swore that I saw one in some time at night! One day I was sleeping and I suddenly felt that a hand was tapping on my pillow, I raised my head and looked but there was no hand and no-one else in the room. I was sure that it was one of those evil souls playing jokes with me, and I was scared till death that I couldn't even move and go to Mom! I liked to watch horror movies, and yet after the movie was finished I used to regret watching it cuz it made me scared! I still like watching this kind of movies but I don't regret watching it anymore ;)

Like all the girls in the world, i liked Baribe so much and I had about ten dolls, or maybe more. My sister and I used to make small houses under the bed for them, and we used to give them names, plan for a scene and start playing. Kain was named Marc most of the time!
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well, i took a break from typing for some time and decided to watch a movie. Dad got me two DVD's today; one was Chronicles of Narnia, and the other is War of the Worlds. I just finished watching the first one, it's so awesome! I will probably go watch the other movie after i finish typing this.

Talking about movies, there used to be a lot of cartoon movies I liked to watch when I was a little kid. I remember this Russian cartoon called The Wild Swans. The characters were Russains but they were speaking Arabic. The story of the movie goes around eleven brothers living with their one beautiful sister and their father, the king. Their stepmother happened to be a witch and she turned the brothers to wild swans one night, and then turned the sister to an ugly girl. They all wandered in the woods to search for some magical cure to undo the spell of the witch. And sure, peace prevails at the end!

We had this cartoon on tape and my sister and I used to watch it all the time. We even learned most of the dialogue by heart! Other favourite cartoons were Tom And Jerry which I still watch till now J, Morocco, a Chinease cartoon about a little crazy and funny girl. Well I was watching this one when I was at college. And like all the Iraqi kids, I liked Grendizer!

I have a bad habbit of smelling things before I use them!! Well I don't know if I should call it a bad or weird habbit. When I was at college, I found out that one of my friends, F., used to smell things as well, especially food! Whenever we were at the college's cafeteria and wanted to eat something, I was asking her please not to smell the food! At least no in front of all the students. And she was laughing at me saying that I do the same.

For instance, I was just smelling the CD before I put it back in its cover. Well, it has a smell! And it reminded me of the times when my sister, uncle and I used to stay all night playing some playstation games. We didn't have a Playstation at home, so we used to hire one from the vedio games shop in the neighborhood every weekend, and we used to start playing from 10 P.M. till 10 o'clock the next morning! We first were getting pale as the time elapsed, then at the end of the time we all turned green! That wasn't a very long time ago, it happened when I was at high school. I never showed any interest in computers and plastations before that time. I never liked these things! But now sure I do!


While I was having dinner with my family a few days ago, dad asked me to pass the ketchap and sause to him. Then I rememberd that I haven't tried sause with my food for a very long time. When I was a kid I preferred sause to ketchap and mustard, but now I prefer the opposite. The reason for that is because the taste of sause reminds me of the long sanction we had during the 90's! It was hard to find the good products so we had to buy a not very good sause which was made in Iraq. The test wasn't good at all, but we didn't have another choice. My sister and I used to have it with almost all kinds of food.

Back to the night when I was having dinner, I decided to try the sause and asked Dad to pass the bottle for me. as soon as I tried it I laughed and said "sanction taste!"

For the first time, this post took me more than a week to write, and God knows how many days left to publish it! I'm still having problems getting online, so as usual, i'm typing this offline.

Go ahead, laugh at Morbido!