Ramadan is upon us!

First of all I'd like to say Ramadan Mubarak dear readers! I wish you all a blessed month for you and your families...for all of us. May Allah accept our fasting ya rab!

It's almost going to be a whole year since my first post in this blog. Can't believe it. A whole year (on 9/9/09)!! Looking back at those days, so many things have changed. I'm looking forward to Ramadan. Actually, I'm always looking forward to it. Even though I'm in NZ and there's a different feel to it in the Arab/Muslim countries, it still feels like something else. Not like any other day. I just love it!

A mini update on me:

Well what can I say, it's been a pretty hectic B-semester for me with lots of weird, crazy, stressful and pressuring things happening. On top of all of this, I had gotten really sick with a flu, recently. Yes! I totally suspected that swine flu has finally gotten to me, but el 7amdulellah it turned out to be just the usual winter flu.

All of these things happened but I'm just thankful that I had wonderful, amazing friends by my side supporting and pushing me to do what I can. You guys well know who you are (some will not be reading this because they don't know about my blog xD) so just know I'm thankful for you guys! <3 Also, love goes out to my Mama!

So a two week "holiday" has started here, today was the last day, and I'm pretty glad that we'd only have to fast two weeks during uni. The reason why I used quotations marks in holiday is because, well, you can't say it's a holiday really. I mean, I've got 3 assignments to hand in next week so I'll be going into uni to do some work plus I have my full semester project. Crazy right! A lot to do...which is good because I'd like to be busy rather than not.

Lately I've been interested in Horror Games O.O Yeah! I know...where did that come from? Actually it came from my Game Studies course that I'm taking this semester. The main focus is on horror games, and for our first assignment we have to play a game and analyze it by writing a 2000-2500 word essay. I've been playing Resident Evil 4...and I LOVE IT!

Anyways, this is it from me. I should go sleep, since tonight we will have so7or inshallah (3 hours and a half to go....I'm so going to be cranky xD).

Ramadan Mubarak all!
G'Night

Suheir Hammad - Def Poetry

Okay! So I had to share this because this video is one of those videos that just moves you powerfully. This young women is amazing and her words are just...*cannot think of a powerful word to describe the words*

Honestly, I'm amazed and happy by this. No matter how many times I watch it I still get fascinated and moved by it like it's the first time I watch this video.

A must see!

Thanx to Sarz for sharing this with me! <3

[Travel] My Kamboo3a is bigger than yours

Thursday 16th July
Location - Al Khod, Oman
Time - 12:00pm

Aaargh! I'm in such a depressive mood right now. I really miss my cousins and every single one of my relatives. It sucks living so far away like this *angry*.

I also miss Jordan...I actually really do. It was so much fun! Not bad for a country that I had so much negative thoughts about. As for Oman...well Oman is so friggin' HOT!...and quite boring =P I don't want to be here lol. I really can't believe how air conditioners are crucial...objects in this country. I don't know how people without an AC are fighting this oven lol.

We're here for just 2 days so we only went to City Center, since it's near also. I checked out a few shops and bought a few things but honestly I was a walking zombie. I didn't feel like being there. But here's the thing...everything has changed...negatively and positively. There were some...humans that were out of place if I can say also lol.

The guys. You've got the ones with the dishdasha, which I find very handsome...them wearing the dishdasha not the guys...don't get me wrong here xD, then there are those with jeans and a shirt or a nice Qamee9. Modern, stylish and most importantly reasonable. Then! You see you're 'Gangsta Wannabes' or even worse...'The triplets' as I like to call them.

'The Triplets' consists of three guys who wear the same shoe, pants, shirt, hair-cut, hair-do, and hair-band. The hair-cut is usally of neck length. The hair-do is blow dried and curved at the tips. The hair-band is used to pull the hair back from the front.

..................

What the?! What's this "new" trend xD? Yes! Believe it or not it's a trend since I didn't just see one 'The Triplets' but more than one. I was shocked to be honest. What's fascinating though is their height. They're all the same height as well! =O I already find it weird when girls do this even though it's alright and a commen thing but to see guys doing this and with that hair-do, is just the cherry on top really!

So I finally saw the real Kamboo3a, scarf...thingy that girls wear. I got warned about this; by Omani girls. Some even said that I will laugh when I see how ridiculously high those things can get, but I actually freaked out. Seriously! I was shocked.

I was waiting to get into a dressing room to try on something when this girl came out of one of the dressing rooms....O.O This was my first Kamboo3a sighting. I think she blew dried her hair because her fringe was perfectly made in a way that it sat 7cm above her head. Then there was something higher, behind the fringe, that's covered by a black scarf. I think it was 15cm high *eyes pop out* Her head was so huge, vertically and horizontally! It looked really heavy also =\ On top of all of this about one kilogram of makeup plus blue contact lenses. Why all of this?

I found out that girls with high kamboo3a's compete with other girls to see who's kamboo3a is higher. The following conversation occurred behind me where some girls were standing very close:

Girl 1: "Why are you looking at her?"
Girl 2: "Oh! I'm not looking at her face, I just want to see if her kamboo3a is higher than mine. It's not."
Girl 1: "Aah ok."

So both of these girls saw a girl walking by (her abaya and kamboo3a caught their attention) and apparently girl 2 looked too much at the walking by girl and hence the conversation.

Well people, I'm very much shocked. I saw some reasonably sized Kamboo3a's (man I hate this word now xD am I even saying it right?) which didn't go over the head but behind it and I thought those looked really nice. But the over sized ones are just...eye popping.

Anywho, our flight back to NZ is sometime at or after Fajr...not sure. But all I know is we have to be at the Airport by 3am. So no sleep for us. I'm just waiting to have lunch (even though I don't feel like it but I'm being forced to eat since I haven't been eating much lately) then I'm off to get some sleep.

That's the end of it, sadly.

[Travel] Emo's vs. Pink Muscles

Monday 13th July
Time - 10:00am
Location: Arajan, Jordan

So we managed to get time, as a family, to go and do something together. We went to a place called Share3 Al Wekalat which is a long street where you have these more modern shops/restaurants on your left and right. It was not bad. Quite nice actually!

I managed to buy 3 shoes from this shop *forgot its name*, so was pretty happy about that. I definitely got disturbed in that shoe shop though because for one thing I know there are men who grow their pinky nail, to pick...stuff. But to grow the nail of the thumb is a first time. It was absolutely long and perfectly shaped O.o I wanted to break it! Ergh! *shivers* Okay! It's not like I approve of growing the pinky nail but the thumb?! Seriously?

After paying we went out and continued our walk to see many more...unexpected types of people.

You've got your Emo's. Yes! The emo trend is pretty popular here and it's the full look too; the hair, the clothes and even the makeup. The guys and the girls. I remember seeing one the first day we arrived. I was sitting with my bros in the back seat of my uncles car and this car passed by us:

Gchan: "EMO!!"

Bro gives me this scared/confused look and says:

Bro: "Oy! There are so many here...they think it's cool or something."

Then, there's the group of guys with major muscles and tight.pink.shirts.....
This did it for me >_<

Then came the fellas from the Gulf. They actually made me laugh and ticked off at the same time. Who would go from one country to another just to sit in Starbucks? Who! I find that quite retarded since there are all these nice, sha3bee - the country's own cafe's and restaurants - places. I know it's none of my business and stuff but seriously...Starbucks?!! Shame on them.

Anyways, this happened about 2-3 days ago and I just got the chance to write about it. I spent the last 2 days catching up with friends, shopping, visiting family and spending the night at my aunts house, which was a lot of fun. My cousins and I stayed up to watch a horror movies, Friday the 13th, which was a complete waste of time. We laughed at how stupid it was though...such a typical horror.

I couldn't sleep that night. I kept on thinking that we have almost 2 days till we leave and that just made me really sad. Getting back to our life in NZ...meh!

[Travel] The Road to the Pink City

Monday 6th July
Time - 10:11am
Location: Arajan, Jordan

So yesterday we had a cousins only trip to...PETRA!!! Oh. My. Gosh! This is one amazing place! I've been wanting to visit it ever since I saw Transformers 2 xD. It's such an amazing, beautiful place that photos won't do it justice.

We rented a mini-van and al hamdulellah it was perfect for 10 people (even though it was just an 8 seats van lol) . My favorite uncle came with us to drive us there...we specifically chose him because it was like he's one of us. He totally made the trip even more fun with his lovely personality and sense of humor. We were 4 girls and 5 guys (not including uncle). We got picked up around 5am and headed on the road to Petra. We were all very excited and crazy (that early in the morning eh?! xD). It takes around 3-4 hours to get to the Red City, but it didn't feel that long because we were talking, singing, and eating.

The road to Petra is a pretty desert-ee road but it was still very nice and mashallah the weather was perfectly amazing! I asked my uncle if he can just stop, anywhere basically, so we can take some pictures. And so he did. We fooled around a bit and one of my cousins taught us how to do the Dabka so we all ended up doing it. It's pretty easy actually...thought it'd be more complicated than that lol.

Back on the road!

The nice thing was that the road was completely empty...but who goes out that early eh? When we came close to reaching Petra we were able to see how huge it was:

When we finally got there and entered, we were welcomed by a long, open and, again, desert-ee road. If I remember correctly I think we walked a total (going and coming) of at least 10K's. It was uber tiring!

So we started our walk taking pictures here and there.

Oh! The smell...was absolutely horrific xD There were horses that took people, who wanted a ride, to a certain checkpoint before entering the actual walkway to Petra. So imagine all the poo lying around lol.

After bit of walking, we finally reach the main path to Petra.

This was a long walk too. Longer than the desert road at the beginning. But it was a nicer and cooler place.


Finally we reached Petra. It was an awesome feeling, like you've achieved something and it's as if you're in a movie - like how you turn the corner then you find what you were looking for - like that lol.


It was pretty amazing. Very fascinating also. Loved it a lot! There were a lot of tourists there, mostly Asians and Americans. I wonder how they stood the sun. It wasn't hot but the sun was totally out there.

We started getting hungry so we went to find a place to sit and eat. My uncle ended up taking us up this scary, rocky mountain...it was pretty dangerous if you ask me, but we made it and it was a good, beautiful spot to have a picnic.

After getting energized with food we continued our walk deeper into Petra.

We reached a point where we were practically dead. We hadn't had much sleep, due to the excitement, so one can imagine how sleepy we were. All the walking we did just took it's toll on us. It was so hot, that time of day, the sun was way up in the sky, hitting us with it's rays. Plus we were really sweaty and stunk so bad lol...actually I think it was the animal "droppings". All of that and we still had the walk back to the car. Nobody had energy.

The walk back took us twice as long as the walk going...plus we ended up riding horses the last half-hour of the walk because that's it...we were done! My horse seemed to feel the same way as we did lol...poor thing. He just couldn't walk. As we neared the getting off place he made this really loud scream-horse sound and actually stopped in it's tracks. The owner gave him a tug and the horse gathered itself and moved.

I ended up apologizing to him saying something like "I'm so sorry for making you carry me all the way here"...he just looked at me like in the picture lol. *cute*

We all slept on the ride home. We ached so bad to get home and have a cool shower lol. I couldn't stand myself. Oh! I was wearing white boots, they came back pink xD so we were very sandy as well.

All in all, it was the most amazing trip ever!!
Never to be forgotten!


p.s. all pictures from Petra will soon be uploaded to flickr =)

[Travel] Am I in a movie?

Saturday 4th July
Location: Arajan, Jordan
Time: 8:30am

Goodness! I can't believe it's Saturday already. Time goes by even faster here *noooo*.
Anywho, basically what happened is the whole family gathered up and went on a lovely, full day trip. We rented a 25 seats bus that came with a driver (hah...that sounds funny =P) who drove us to 3 places. First stop was Jarash, also known as Geresa...I think lol. Is that place awesome or is that place AWESOME! It's one of the famous historic locations in Jordan and I don't know why but the whole time I was there I kept remembering 2 movies; 300 and Troy (loved both of them). Maybe because of the Roman-y feel to it or how it's built and stuff.

So it's a really cool place...huge as well. It needed a lot of walking, which was NOT cool -____- (kidding). Let the pictures speak for them selves:

Jordan is a really beautiful country!

This kid was sitting right at the entrance to Jarash making these

Sands in the bottle souvenirs. Very talented! I bought one with my name on it.Cool costume...bet he's hating himself though =PI heard music coming from the area where I took this shot... I was way down there in the big circle-y area.

Guess who was making music?!

He was waving at me so hard to take a picture of him lol.Long long road!

After Jarash we head to an area called Ajloon (3ajloon) to find a nice, shady place to sit and have lunch. We found just that and started unpacking for lunch. Mashallah there was a lot of food and looked good but for some unknown reason didn't eat much =( *regretting it* Oh! I forgot to take a shot of the food...was too busy setting things up and passing food around *innocent*

Anywho, this old old man, walked over with a rababah (which I love the sound of), sat down, took the names of my Dad and my uncles (abo first oldest son name) and started reciting a poem while including their names and playing the rababah. It was really nice and funny!

Rababah Man!

After that, we just sat around chatting and drinking Arabic coffee. Yeah! I tried Arabic coffee for the first time...and it was sugarless O.O Yes! I actually liked it because it had Cardamom (Hael) in it but it was super strong. The strongest coffee I ever drank.

We eventually got bored and decided to head to Qal3at 3ajloon (Ajloon castle) which is also known as Salah Al Deen's Castle. Now that was something! It was on a mountain and till now I don't know how the bus driver go us up there.

The castle has an area for a small Museum that displays olden day Jewelery, Kohl spoons (which look scary), and coins which were the size of a really really really small button O.O Then there were these big stones that had Arabic writing (from what it looks like) on it, but no one is able to read it without a translation. Being 'me', I took a picture of the stone but not the translation =D

We headed up further more and into the castle, snapping pictures here and there until we reached the outside. Now the view was pretty much breath taking! It was really beautiful and the breeze was so nice. All you could see is land, mountains and little houses. I was with my Dad when he told me "Beyond those mountains (Dad points at mountains)...is Palestine". I just looked at him like O.O, then a rush came over me, feeling all tingly just knowing that Palestine is just beyond those mountains. We were that close, eh.

Palestine behind the farthest mountain :"(
Click image for better look.

We got back to the bus and headed home and let me just say, the ride home was a fun-crazy ride. I won't go into detail but it mostly consisted of traditional Dabka music, dancing (xD) and planning a cousins only trip to PETRA!!!! I'm SO excited! =D

Anywho, this is all I've got for now. I'm hungry so I'm off to have breakfast.


p.s. I miss the internet. I can't believe I can go this long without it =O