This is part three of the year end manifestation of the life of my blog.

My blog this year won so many awards, that I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count them! NOT!! (Didn’t I sound cheesy and dorky like the rest of the bloggers out there?) But yes, my blog won a lot of invisible mind boggling awards. I won people’s readerships. That’s the biggest award I can get as a blogger. I don’t care about best blog, or best writer, or best anything. Who cares? It’s like winning a virtual banner to advertise someone else’s bright idea that started the campaign.

Really, if the prize was money based, then people will be all over it! I would be so all over it!

So, I am gonna list the top blog posts this year by comments, my favorites, and ones that I should have never published, but found their way online cause of my insomnia or excessive amounts of coffee!

Top Blog Posts 2009 | Comments & Reactions

1. April 28, 2009 | It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a conspiracy theory!
2. June 7, 2009 | The Arab Blogorette
3. June 16, 2009 | I think it is time for change!
4. August 25, 2009 | Why are Muslims turning Atheists?
5. August 30, 2009 | Analysis: It is much harder to get rid of her
6. September 7, 2009 | Arabs marrying non-Arabs
7. September 18, 2009 | Window shopping for a bride
8. October 27, 2009 | Symbols of being different

Top Blog Posts 2009 | Monaism & Love

1. January 15, 2009 | Are good people always the victims of life?
2. March 31, 2009 | How accurate is this?
3. April 20, 2009 | Airports think I am a perv!
4. May 21, 2009 | A way to relieve stress
5. July 15, 2009 | Teaching a child the basics of the internet world
6. September 6, 2009 | No Comment
7. September 24, 2009 | I am sick and tired of looking for work!!! NO MORE!
8. December 4, 2009 | The typicals
9. December 26, 2009 | I am the master of my choices

Top Blog Pots 2009 | Those That Should Have Never Been

1. January 28, 2009 | The blogging world is run by monkeys
2. May 4, 2009 | I thought I held the title of taking things too seriously
3. June 20, 2009 | The media has been following me for over two decades
4. September 26, 2009 | I don’t like talking about sex in public

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In the past, I have known and conversed with many Arabs that lived life a certain way, because a majority of them came at a young adult age, but changed completely after I have talked to them several years later. It’s quite amusing seeing someone again after many years, but it is horrible at times and makes you step back a bit and ask them, “Is this really you? Who are you?”

A few years back, I had a conversation with an Arab man, much older than me, that told me, “To fit into this society, you have to act like them, think like them, and must only converse with them all the time.” At the time, I didn’t know what he was talking about really, but it made sense I guess. I grew up not around Arabs, then in my late teens, I was surrounded again with Arabs. Therefore, the thoughts in my head were not stable. I was exploring life and the people around me. I was trying to understand where I was now, who I am, and how I should live.

Live. How to live?

Unfortunately, this Arab man didn’t really convince me, since he was extreme in his choices of fitting in, that he lost the values of being an Arab. He still talked to certain Arabs since he is still one, but he lost the meaning of being one. Very much lost it.

Fakeness is Obvious

I think I have a gift in spotting a fake person a mile away. I think life just kicks people in the ass so hard, that they think they are making the right decisions. I knew some very traditional Arabs. Also, they are very religious, and held exceptional morals. If you meet them, you would say to yourself, “Hello! We are in Canada, but good that you stay true to who you are. Even though you are a bit odd and incomprehensible to the rest of the people around you, but I still salute you for being you and holding on to your values.”

Few years pass …

Bam! Twilight zone. Hello! What the hell happened to those people? My goodness. Is it me, or have people purposely decided that acting so fake, living a scripted life, and forcefully fitting in by acting so pathetically out of place, is the only way to do it?

One person I conversed with a few months back told me that hanging out with Arabs is bad. You have to hang out with the people here, act like them, do everything that is written in the book.

What book is that exactly?

I think there is a network of Arabs that spread this mentality. You see, I have met many non-Arabs that come from very distinct and obvious ethnic backgrounds, that don’t think like that. They act like themselves. They live life the way they want it, and expect people to understand them and learn about them, and not the other way around. Why can’t Arabs do that? Why are they always trying to change who they are to “fit in?”

Why can’t people just act the way they like and are comfortable with, and inevitably force the people around them to learn more and understand. Why should I change for you? Isn’t it easier to just make you understand instead?

I think that is the problem with the hatred the western world has towards other ethnicity, especially Arabs. They don’t understand us. If you don’t understand something, because the other person is not allowing you to understand, then you will get frustrated and wonder what they are hiding.

What are those Arabs hiding?

We are hiding nothing really, but some of us don’t know where that middle ground us; that intersection point between cultures that keeps it balanced and understood.

If you are a non-Arab, do you know much about Arabs? Who we really are? What life we live? What our real traditions are? What our real morals and values are? I didn’t think so, but for those Arabs who are too ASHAMED of who they are, and start living a scripted life, will lose their themselves. You might as well change your name to Mike, Jeff, Sam, or Mo, because you lost it anyways. You might as well lose the rest of it.

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I don’t know about you, but most likely you have seen people that you have known in the past working somewhere you never expected them to ever work at. People who are educated and have University or College degrees that end up working as cashiers at the mall, because when I asked them, they said that they were never able to find anything else. I really feel bad for them. I just keep thanking God that I ended up in the same exact profession I studied; otherwise, who knows how my mental state would be, and where I would be at now.

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I really find it so wrong, and it was something I complained about a lot in the past about this exact same situation. You were young, you decided to study something you are passionate about, but afterward, no luck. Let’s not bring the economy problems here. Those are people my age, and they should have been way into their careers by now. Honestly, I don’t know how people hire other people. Is it only based on skills? Personality? Group work? Appearance? I mean let’s be honest here, I still have no friggen clue why I got hired to this new job of mine. I feel that I lack everything I just mentioned. lol However, I have passion and I really love what I do, but I still walk in every day at work and think to my self, “Do I really work here?”

You know what I wish? I wish that I can just build an empire and hire those people where they belong. I would even spend the time to train them. I just think there is so much potential out there in those people that still didn’t get the chance that they deserve.

Maybe I am thinking of some type of utopia here that will never happen, but I think this way because I worked and met so many incompetent idiots that are taking the place of those people that never gotten a chance. I like equality in life, and I really try to fight for it and speak out regarding the injustice in anything related to equality. However, sometimes I feel that no one is listening, and things will never change. Or they will never change, because people don’t want to change.

But you know what, they used to say that the earth was flat, DaVinci was insane, people will never fly, man would never go to the moon, and God does not exist. (I had to throw in that last part, because you know me, I am annoying, and I like to stir debates.)

So I still hope things will change and everyone is happy!! Because like my dear mother always says to me, “Hope is what keeps us alive!”

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I am a stereotypical, hypocritical, overbearing religious child.

Does that make sense at all?

That’s a snippet of an email I got today from some chick who had a serious problem with me dissing slutty Arab girls. In reality, she had a problem with me having an opinion. I don’t understand this, if I talk about anything religious, then overly religious people send me hate mail and swear left and right at me. By the way, if you are so religious, then why the hell you go on the internet and throw derogatory statements at some anonymous girl from Canada? And if I write anything about the nastiness that some people do, I get hate mail from people that don’t like it, and call me religious or pretending to be one.

Seriously, I don’t get it, what is wrong with you people? You don’t like what I have to say, then go somewhere else that has some closed minded mass opinionated topics.

By the way, stick and stones may break my bones, but I still don’t give a shit!

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What amazed me that someone called me a hypocritical overbearing religious child. Fine, call me overbearing, and call me a child. But religious and before that calling me hypocritical? Makes no sense, but I wouldn’t call my self religious at all. I call my self neutral. I am not a crazy religious fanatic or anything. At the same time, I am not anti-religious or “rebellious” against religion. However, how can you explain that to people that come to your site from another site or search engine, and then stay on your site for maximum 10 minutes, and formulate an end-all be-all opinion about you?

I know many bloggers out there that have the same problems as me. That’s why I am writing this post. This is what happens when you have a blog for so long. You can’t even protect what you have written anymore, and some topics are so old that you cannot remember what you wrote or why you wrote them. I disabled comments from posts over 7 days old, and have a re-captcha for protection against spam, but how can I protect or avoid those lurkers?

I have a new plan for the next year, and it will annoy the hell out of everyone, but you know what, in the end of the day, this blog is just an online diary of my self. It contains my opinions about life in general, and that’s it.

Finally, think of if this way: if I tell you that your shirt is ugly, then go ask a million other people if they think so to, but don’t take my word on it. It is just my stereotypical, hypocritical, and overbearing opinion of your hideous shirt.

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After the events of the year 2001, and the way the world portrayed us as Arabs, the psychological well being of Arabs have been affected dramatically. When something negative is said to a person who happens to be of Arab descent, then the first thing they say, “Oh, they know we are Arab, that’s why they treat us badly and hate us!”

In reality, when a non-Arab communicates with us, 99% of the time they have no clue where we are from. We are mistaken to be anyone else but Arab. And those from other cultures are mistaken as us. It all depends on what we wear really. Which is usually an Islamic attire, and not really an Arab related one. However, for those of us Arabs here that wear nothing that distinguishes as from the rest, then the likelihood of anyone figuring out our real ethnicity is slim to none.

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So, why do Arabs constantly blame everyone else?

Us Arabs like to justify everything. We have to have a reason of why someone treated us like crap, or not giving us the level of utter respect that we deserve. Something in our heads keeps telling us that we are better than everyone else, and we must be treated the best way possible. Unfortunately, when you live in such a multicultural land, you are just like everyone else. Unless you are some famous Hollywood actor walking in the streets, then most likely, no one gives two shits about you.

So why am I mentioning all this?

You see, my lovely mother that I adore dearly, is a big time social butterfly. She knows people. A lot of people. And 99% of those people are Arab. So she keeps telling me random shit about what they say. The moment I hear it, and her believing it, makes me want to scream. My mother thinks that Arabs in this city, especially the older generation, gets treated badly or not given the proper customer care in anything, because they are Arab.

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How did they know anyways they were Arab?

The moment she says that, I say, “Everyone treats everyone badly. You should see the customer service horror stories I read on the internet from “Non-Arabs!” Being an Arab has nothing to do with it. Why do you Arabs keep thinking that if the world doesn’t treat you well, then they are against you because you are an Arab!?”

Then my mom screams at me and tells me, “Aren’t you ARAB?”

When the conversation reaches that level, I just get up and leave. I don’t know why parents have to say that. We have no shame of being Arabs. Our generation has no shame with our identity and roots. We just disagree with a lot of things that you say and think. Things changed drastically. We are just like everyone else. If you believe you are different, walk the streets like you are an alien, then most likely you will unconsciously think that.

You define your roots. Your roots don’t define you.

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