Monday, December 25, 2006
Bob Dylan
gotta say I'm not a fan of Bob Dylan's, though I like some of his musicals, but have bumped in some of his quotes. This guy is GOOD!!
A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.
A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.
A mistake is to commit a misunderstanding.
All I can do is be me, whoever that is.
He not busy being born is busy dying.
I say there're no depressed words just depressed minds.
In the dime stores and bus stations, people talk of situations, read books, repeat quotations, draw conclusions on the wall.
People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.
There is nothing so stable as change.
You learn from a conglomeration of the incredible past - whatever experience gotten in any way whatsoever.
All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.
This very last one is very true. Will have one big post about that ONLY
A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.
A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.
A mistake is to commit a misunderstanding.
All I can do is be me, whoever that is.
He not busy being born is busy dying.
I say there're no depressed words just depressed minds.
In the dime stores and bus stations, people talk of situations, read books, repeat quotations, draw conclusions on the wall.
People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.
There is nothing so stable as change.
You learn from a conglomeration of the incredible past - whatever experience gotten in any way whatsoever.
All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.
This very last one is very true. Will have one big post about that ONLY
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Schiphol raye7 gay
Dubai, here I go...hmmmm....oops, not yet!!
Well, as I always hate waiting, but hate to be late as well, specially with flights, as I wouldn't be a happy Aly with a missing flight, specially with that big sum of money and being excited for the first reunion for my whole 3-individualed people's great family in more than a year!!
This was exactly the reason for me to set the alarm quite early - 5 hours before my flight - to take my time in preparation and leave everything well organised before leaving......sounds good, except that I woke up by myself to check the watch and find it already almost 2 hours before my flight!!!!!!!
As I normally get a half an hour of brain-retardness every morning after the process of waking up, so all I did was a jumped out of the bed and into my clothes, and started running toward the bus station, hopped in, get off, hop in the train to the airport........and this was the first moments that I start thinking, if this will be my first time to miss a flight, DAMN!!
The good thing though that I probably made a record of time, between my bed to the airport in an hour, considering that the train normally takes some time around 50 mins, and the bus from my house - if it's running frequently and not a rush hour - takes 5 mins, but unfortunately was a rush hour, so was a 12 mins ride.
Anyway, after arriving to the airport I still need to get my ticket from the Turkish airlines office, the thing is when I arrived at their office, I found this lady talking over the phone in Turkish - that I don't understand - but was obviously that was kind of conversations that old ladies deal with, from talking about rumours, gossiping, and anything that seems useless at such moment, but made me jumbing all around here, trying to tell her: hey ma'aaaam, I think I'm missing my flight........pleeeeeeeaaase, helloooooo.......I'm here. Anyway, after getting the ticket and everything went fine, I headed directly to the boarding gate, and you can sense in the airport that there's a higher security tight, or tension........and you start thinking, damn it, probably those dudes will give me some retarding time before boarding.
I got to the security gate to find something really weird - or at least for me - as although in France it was a big headline in the news that the airport administration of Charle de Gaulle's want to decrease the number of muslims working at security which are 300 out of 3000, but in Amsterdam's out of 5 officers at my boarding gate, there was 5 officers, from which one guy was Dutch and 2 Moroccan, and 2 Turkish!! which somehow indicates the Dutch tolerance toward the different Ethnic groups, but the funny thing that whilst my checking process did not take more than me passing through the metal detector gate and that's it, the 2 Dutch girls who were standing behind me were asked to take off their shoes and were body searched!!
The thing is with such tight security measures, you get a feeling that they will ask you to strip off and you will get your clothes back at the destination airport, while in fact, what happened to me was very weird........after putting all - what seemed to me all - the liquid bottles in the legal transparent plastic bag that they handle at the airport and giving it to them to check it, the Moroccan security officer who was so nice, told me in a decent way that I have liquids that total more than 100 ml, which is not allowed so ended up with me ditching the hair gel bottle to pass through, and to discover just after passing the security gate that I have got another bottle in the bag, without them knowing!!!!
Actually, the fact that I have - unintendedly- passed through with a "hidden" unallowed something made me highly doubt about that security measures, which is simply saying: "what you HAVE and is not ALLOWED, and we SEE, is forbidden, but if you can HIDE it without US knowing, it is fine".
Well, as I always hate waiting, but hate to be late as well, specially with flights, as I wouldn't be a happy Aly with a missing flight, specially with that big sum of money and being excited for the first reunion for my whole 3-individualed people's great family in more than a year!!
This was exactly the reason for me to set the alarm quite early - 5 hours before my flight - to take my time in preparation and leave everything well organised before leaving......sounds good, except that I woke up by myself to check the watch and find it already almost 2 hours before my flight!!!!!!!
As I normally get a half an hour of brain-retardness every morning after the process of waking up, so all I did was a jumped out of the bed and into my clothes, and started running toward the bus station, hopped in, get off, hop in the train to the airport........and this was the first moments that I start thinking, if this will be my first time to miss a flight, DAMN!!
The good thing though that I probably made a record of time, between my bed to the airport in an hour, considering that the train normally takes some time around 50 mins, and the bus from my house - if it's running frequently and not a rush hour - takes 5 mins, but unfortunately was a rush hour, so was a 12 mins ride.
Anyway, after arriving to the airport I still need to get my ticket from the Turkish airlines office, the thing is when I arrived at their office, I found this lady talking over the phone in Turkish - that I don't understand - but was obviously that was kind of conversations that old ladies deal with, from talking about rumours, gossiping, and anything that seems useless at such moment, but made me jumbing all around here, trying to tell her: hey ma'aaaam, I think I'm missing my flight........pleeeeeeeaaase, helloooooo.......I'm here. Anyway, after getting the ticket and everything went fine, I headed directly to the boarding gate, and you can sense in the airport that there's a higher security tight, or tension........and you start thinking, damn it, probably those dudes will give me some retarding time before boarding.
I got to the security gate to find something really weird - or at least for me - as although in France it was a big headline in the news that the airport administration of Charle de Gaulle's want to decrease the number of muslims working at security which are 300 out of 3000, but in Amsterdam's out of 5 officers at my boarding gate, there was 5 officers, from which one guy was Dutch and 2 Moroccan, and 2 Turkish!! which somehow indicates the Dutch tolerance toward the different Ethnic groups, but the funny thing that whilst my checking process did not take more than me passing through the metal detector gate and that's it, the 2 Dutch girls who were standing behind me were asked to take off their shoes and were body searched!!
The thing is with such tight security measures, you get a feeling that they will ask you to strip off and you will get your clothes back at the destination airport, while in fact, what happened to me was very weird........after putting all - what seemed to me all - the liquid bottles in the legal transparent plastic bag that they handle at the airport and giving it to them to check it, the Moroccan security officer who was so nice, told me in a decent way that I have liquids that total more than 100 ml, which is not allowed so ended up with me ditching the hair gel bottle to pass through, and to discover just after passing the security gate that I have got another bottle in the bag, without them knowing!!!!
Actually, the fact that I have - unintendedly- passed through with a "hidden" unallowed something made me highly doubt about that security measures, which is simply saying: "what you HAVE and is not ALLOWED, and we SEE, is forbidden, but if you can HIDE it without US knowing, it is fine".
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Some random Turkmenology thoughts
Well, my ultimate interest or let's put it that way, my knowledge about that country halts at the fact that Turks came originally from that region and dominated what is now known as Turkey since the 10th century, but my interests were extended when I got stroke by some news headings like Death leaves uncertain future or Turkmen leader pledges stability........but hold on a sec!! how can a death of a president or a leader, actually, leaves an uncertain future for a country, or how can his death leads to a non "stable and calm"ness situation in the country!!
Despite being a Türkmenbasy, but here are some interesting facts on imposing his personal eccentricities on the country:
Despite being a Türkmenbasy, but here are some interesting facts on imposing his personal eccentricities on the country:
- In April 2004, urging young people not to get gold tooth caps or gold teeth, suggesting instead that they chew on bones to preserve their teeth
- In February 2005, ordering the closure of all hospitals outside As,gabat, saying that if people were ill, they could come to the capital; also ordering the closure of all rural libraries of Turkmenistan, saying that ordinary Turkmen do not read books anyway
- In January 2006, Russian media reported[16] that he had ordered to stop paying pensions to 1/3 (more than 100,000) of the country's elderly people, cutting pensions to another 200,000, and ordering to pay the pensions received in the past two years back to the State. This has supposedly resulted in a huge number of deaths of old people, who may have had their pension (ranging from US$10 to US$90) as the only source of money. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan strongly denied [17] these allegations, accusing the media outlets of spreading "deliberately perverted" information on the issue.
Egypt is my country
I was initially writing about something different, when I bumped in this amazing article. It is in Wikipedia about Egypt, which - if you are interested in Egypt/Egyptian history - you can spend some hours reading it. The thing that makes it amazing, that despite that it is the most referenced article in Wikipedia, I have read so far - 101 references - it is one of the very few articles about Egypt, that is pretty much balanced between decent critical criticism and cited facts, meaning that it is stating the bad things in a logical way beside the good things of course.
The only bad thing so far about this article is the pictures of famous Egyptians in the begining of the article that puts some great people like Saad Zaghloul, Naguib Mahfouz, or Prince Rahotep, along with Ruby (el ra2asa) and Nawal El-Saadawi (eih ely gab el magnouna deh hena!!)
The Egyptians are an autochthonous people deeply attached to their land. Historically, it was rare for either Muslim or Coptic Egyptians to leave their country permanently or for an extended period of time...........
...........a study on the pattern of Egyptian emigration was quoted as saying "Egyptians have a reputation of preferring their own soil. Few leave except to study or travel; and they always return... Egyptians do not emigrate."
Egyptians may have the longest continuous history of any people, spanning a period of some 7,000 years............
The only bad thing so far about this article is the pictures of famous Egyptians in the begining of the article that puts some great people like Saad Zaghloul, Naguib Mahfouz, or Prince Rahotep, along with Ruby (el ra2asa) and Nawal El-Saadawi (eih ely gab el magnouna deh hena!!)
The Egyptians are an autochthonous people deeply attached to their land. Historically, it was rare for either Muslim or Coptic Egyptians to leave their country permanently or for an extended period of time...........
...........a study on the pattern of Egyptian emigration was quoted as saying "Egyptians have a reputation of preferring their own soil. Few leave except to study or travel; and they always return... Egyptians do not emigrate."
Egyptians may have the longest continuous history of any people, spanning a period of some 7,000 years............
we've got it all
A store that sells new husbands has just opened in New York City, where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates: "You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the value of the products increases as the shopper ascends the flights. The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!"
So, a woman goes to the store to find a husband. On the first floor the sign reads: "These men Have Jobs". The second floor sign reads: "These men Have Jobs and Love Kids". The third floor sign reads: "These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking."
"Wow," she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.
At the fourth floor the sign reads: "These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework."
"Oh, mercy me!" she exclaims, "I can hardly stand it!"
Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads: "These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Help with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak." She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor and the sign reads: "You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store."
To avoid gender bias charges, the store's owner opens a New Wives store just across the street. It too has six floors. The first floor has wives that love sex. The second floor has wives that love sex and have money. The third through sixth floors have never been visited.
So, a woman goes to the store to find a husband. On the first floor the sign reads: "These men Have Jobs". The second floor sign reads: "These men Have Jobs and Love Kids". The third floor sign reads: "These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking."
"Wow," she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.
At the fourth floor the sign reads: "These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework."
"Oh, mercy me!" she exclaims, "I can hardly stand it!"
Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads: "These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Help with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak." She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor and the sign reads: "You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store."
To avoid gender bias charges, the store's owner opens a New Wives store just across the street. It too has six floors. The first floor has wives that love sex. The second floor has wives that love sex and have money. The third through sixth floors have never been visited.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Palestinian-Israeli Palestinian conflict
Although, it's pitty, but that sums up pretty much everything in the Pal-Isr situation.
Being a mid-eastern and specially Egyptian, puts me in the row of people who KNOWS that the problem - at least as logically percieved by people - out there is solutionless. It is, actually, a very similar situation to the Greeks claims for constantinoupolis, or any region in the world that has been inhabited by some nation and got kicked out from that region by another nation, and till now the "original" nation is alienated in that region!!
But anyway, I believe that the first step toward any solution for that tangled situation should be a Palestinian-Palestinian peace talks.......or learn from some Egyptian sayings:"ana we a7'oya 3ala ebn 3amy, wana we ebn 3amy 3ala el3'areeb" = "me by my brother against my cousin, and me by my cousin against the stranger"
Thursday, December 21, 2006
show me some Physics!!
I remember when we introduced this body rule in one of the physics classes at school as an innocent contribution to science, but was misunderstood (as all of the time genius people) and was kicked badly out of the school with a warning for bad behaviour.
Miss old school times, and small inncoent adventures :)
Last week of November
Travell-o-mania started in this week, exactly on wednesday when I had to go to Rijswijk - yes, it's a name of a city village or what the Dutch say Een Gaat!! - and the reason for going there as most of the poor people like me who gets stuck between the super-slow-Dutch-bureaucratic-system for getting a residence permit and the snail-speed-Dutch-post-system that results in few months of delay of having the permit in your own hands, and I'm saying your own hands, because it may has been reviewed, and might has been approved or even issued, or actually sent to your home, but all that don't mean that you actually HAVE it!! the reason for my obvious need to see anybody walking in the street with IND - Dutch Immigration services office - written on his/her forehead to vindicate the rush need for vengeance by bashing him/her that I - technically - have the permit since 3 months ago, but I don't have it in my OWN HANDS, which means that for travelling anywhere outside NL, I need to get a visa!!
Thursday: went with my boss to Soest - don't even try to spot it on the map!! - to attend a national conference related to the topic of my research and for my surprise, I discovered that the all 60 people who attended the conference are everybody in the whole country who are involved/related/practicing this technique, and for my surprise, I've found a good some of people already knows about my research, and started actually asking me about some basics of this topic!! Well, it's actually nice to feel that you can be usefull at some point :)
The only little problem that I had, was that the biggest portion of the conference was in Dutch, but my crappy Dutch along with translation from some friends and my boss and having the presentations before the conference did helped out.
Friday: was my third time there, and although I love that city, but after the previous 2 times, I was always saying that the next time to France will be to other cities. yes, it's lovely Paris!!
Well, I went there initially for a meeting for the European board that I'm doing my research for/through, and is always an amazing experience to see the different views and perceptions of different people from Europe on the same topic - sometimes hard and at some point you feel that everybody will gonna pull the triger in everybody's else's faces - but I've got to learn a lot from meeting such seniors with loads of experience in that topic. Another amazing thing about the meeting that it was held in the head quarters which is located just in front of Stade de France!!
AND because I can't just go to Paris for attending a one day meeting and leave back without gathering with old fellow Jacek, so I decided to spend the weekend and enjoy Paris along with him, Ola and Laura.......this was one amazing weekend that was in the right time after some intensive weeks.
Well, back to Rotterdam on Sunday night, and get ready for Dubai on Tuesday......YEAH, finally a family reunion after more than a year with all 3 individuals of my small family living in a different country.
This trip to Dubai deserves couple of posts itself....stories will follow.
Thursday: went with my boss to Soest - don't even try to spot it on the map!! - to attend a national conference related to the topic of my research and for my surprise, I discovered that the all 60 people who attended the conference are everybody in the whole country who are involved/related/practicing this technique, and for my surprise, I've found a good some of people already knows about my research, and started actually asking me about some basics of this topic!! Well, it's actually nice to feel that you can be usefull at some point :)
The only little problem that I had, was that the biggest portion of the conference was in Dutch, but my crappy Dutch along with translation from some friends and my boss and having the presentations before the conference did helped out.
Friday: was my third time there, and although I love that city, but after the previous 2 times, I was always saying that the next time to France will be to other cities. yes, it's lovely Paris!!
Well, I went there initially for a meeting for the European board that I'm doing my research for/through, and is always an amazing experience to see the different views and perceptions of different people from Europe on the same topic - sometimes hard and at some point you feel that everybody will gonna pull the triger in everybody's else's faces - but I've got to learn a lot from meeting such seniors with loads of experience in that topic. Another amazing thing about the meeting that it was held in the head quarters which is located just in front of Stade de France!!
AND because I can't just go to Paris for attending a one day meeting and leave back without gathering with old fellow Jacek, so I decided to spend the weekend and enjoy Paris along with him, Ola and Laura.......this was one amazing weekend that was in the right time after some intensive weeks.
Well, back to Rotterdam on Sunday night, and get ready for Dubai on Tuesday......YEAH, finally a family reunion after more than a year with all 3 individuals of my small family living in a different country.
This trip to Dubai deserves couple of posts itself....stories will follow.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
I had a chat with one of my LAWYER colleagues few minutes ago, and the conclusion was:
Law: something created to increase the intelligence of people, on developing new ways to break it!!
Lawyer: a profession that developed to make money out of law, or in other words to make money out of assisting people on sneaking around law!!
Law: something created to increase the intelligence of people, on developing new ways to break it!!
Lawyer: a profession that developed to make money out of law, or in other words to make money out of assisting people on sneaking around law!!
Wisdom of the day
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them - Mark Twain.
The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself - James Thurber.
The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself - James Thurber.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Ninja turtles vs. History of Art
I'm afraid to go on the street one day, stop a random person and ask him, "Hey, what do you think of Michael Angelo?", to get a reply like, "I really like this dude, he's my fav, specially when he fights Shredder...............bla bla bla"
Vegeterians = Smart people
According to the study, it says that intelligent children are more likely to become vegeterians later in life.
I was semi-vegeterian during my childhood and become vigorously carnivores.......does it make me stupid?!
I was semi-vegeterian during my childhood and become vigorously carnivores.......does it make me stupid?!
Weekend 24th-26th November
This weekend was packed with several incidents, starting from Verena's visit, who I've not seen for long time, and was quite interesting hanging around with some other friends, but the most interesting was meeting up AI dudes along with the people who came for the MCs meeting. I was trying to figure out if I'm familiar with any of the faces, but expectedly, my crapy memory didn't serve me till Ieva was introducing me to some girl, as the third person in the picture!!
Well, the story started couple of months earlier, when my housemates, me and Zane (a Latvian friend and ex-aiesecer) decided to have a movie night in my house. She brought a friend of her who's doing a CEED in AI, and she's Latvian as well, when we recalled that we've met before at an aiesec conference, but the thing is, after they left I was looking over the random pics that are hanged in my room to discover that I had a picture for me with a Latvian friend at that conference with 2 other girls (I've not known them at that time), but to discover that one of the 2 girls is actually Ieva!! the third girl who I've not known as well was the girl who we met at the party!! AIESEC's small world.....cool
Saturday: was Laura's performance in a gospel choir. Ieva, Vija and me met to go there together, when we discovered that we were 4 out of 5 who can be called non-dark skinned people, despite that the performance was in Surinamese Spanish (wouldn't make a difference anyway), and I would call was a weird environment from people who are acting as if they're possessed by the devil - I don't know what it should be called, but standing in the middle of the hall, raising a hand and letting the head free-falling over the chest, with your eyes closed and shaking your body, is probably not a normal behaviour for normal people. Anyway, was quite interesting and reminded me with the gospel that I've attended during my stay in Ghana, though was a bit more crazier.
After the gospel, we met the random Spanish/Brazilian guy who Laura met randomly and promised her to cut the broken chain for her bike.
The weird thing was that, we've noticed that during around 20 mins of the suspicious activity of sawing a bike's chain in the entrance corridor of Laura's building and loads of people passing by, but nobody has thought of stopping or asking about what the hell are we doing. I mean what if we were actually thieves and stealing their own bike?!
Anyway, after liberalising the bike we went for an underground club that was suggested by Konstans (the random guy) which is one of those places that you can never know about, unless somebody from there or someone who knows it leads you to it. was nice music and nice settings though.
Well, on our way there we had a tiny accident. I was cycling with Vija riding on the back of my bike, when we suddenly heard a bang and felt that the bike went 50 cms lower than its normal height!! After checking, turned out that the bike decided that it dont deserve me and dont like my company anymore, so it decided to break up our 14 months relationship......I got a broken heart
Well, the story started couple of months earlier, when my housemates, me and Zane (a Latvian friend and ex-aiesecer) decided to have a movie night in my house. She brought a friend of her who's doing a CEED in AI, and she's Latvian as well, when we recalled that we've met before at an aiesec conference, but the thing is, after they left I was looking over the random pics that are hanged in my room to discover that I had a picture for me with a Latvian friend at that conference with 2 other girls (I've not known them at that time), but to discover that one of the 2 girls is actually Ieva!! the third girl who I've not known as well was the girl who we met at the party!! AIESEC's small world.....cool
Saturday: was Laura's performance in a gospel choir. Ieva, Vija and me met to go there together, when we discovered that we were 4 out of 5 who can be called non-dark skinned people, despite that the performance was in Surinamese Spanish (wouldn't make a difference anyway), and I would call was a weird environment from people who are acting as if they're possessed by the devil - I don't know what it should be called, but standing in the middle of the hall, raising a hand and letting the head free-falling over the chest, with your eyes closed and shaking your body, is probably not a normal behaviour for normal people. Anyway, was quite interesting and reminded me with the gospel that I've attended during my stay in Ghana, though was a bit more crazier.
After the gospel, we met the random Spanish/Brazilian guy who Laura met randomly and promised her to cut the broken chain for her bike.
The weird thing was that, we've noticed that during around 20 mins of the suspicious activity of sawing a bike's chain in the entrance corridor of Laura's building and loads of people passing by, but nobody has thought of stopping or asking about what the hell are we doing. I mean what if we were actually thieves and stealing their own bike?!
Anyway, after liberalising the bike we went for an underground club that was suggested by Konstans (the random guy) which is one of those places that you can never know about, unless somebody from there or someone who knows it leads you to it. was nice music and nice settings though.
Well, on our way there we had a tiny accident. I was cycling with Vija riding on the back of my bike, when we suddenly heard a bang and felt that the bike went 50 cms lower than its normal height!! After checking, turned out that the bike decided that it dont deserve me and dont like my company anymore, so it decided to break up our 14 months relationship......I got a broken heart
Back to blogging
Well, haven't blogged for sometime and it's not because the "spring of ideas" flowing in my brain has dried, but because of technical reasons, including lack of internet connection in my house (seems not going to be solved anytime soon) and travelling (which generated much more blogospheric thoughts).
I will be recovering over the next few days my old posts for the interesting incidents that happened to me during the last month, but will take some time and will start from the older incidents.
KEEP UPDATED!!
I will be recovering over the next few days my old posts for the interesting incidents that happened to me during the last month, but will take some time and will start from the older incidents.
KEEP UPDATED!!
