I will be on blog sabbatical till Wed-nes-day! Sorry about the late notification.

In the meantime, to keep my blog active, I am assigning some blog tasks to my daily visitors and active post commentators. Here is what I came up with that sure will keep your senses stimulated.

Mais – your task is to ignite the fire.

Craig – your task is to keep the fire burning.

Charlie – your task is to ignite the fire in different places.

myblog – your task is to make the flame rise higher and higher.

Sarah – your task is to try to moderate the burning thoughts of others.

Janet – your task is to try in every way you can to put out the fire.

That’s it, let me see how creative you guys are in the comment area. Everyone else, your task is to sway the conversation from left to right and make the people I assigned the tasks go crazy trying to answer your thoughts.

Here is the topic: Israel v.s the world. What do you think?

Advice, Blah Blah, Categorize this!, Confused, Culture, Palestine, Ranting as usual!, Religion, They said what?, Whatever!

My mother knows I have a very short temper and I blow up faster than a propane tank, and that’s why she said, “Mona! Don’t go crazy and cause trouble at work with women. I know women, don’t mess with them!”

What am I then? A robo-tech-teenage-looking-arab-girl?

My mother asked me how I like my work today. I told her, “You mean the crazy women I deal with every day? Those women who are hired in a software part of the company and they can’t use a computer? Copy and paste is such a tedious task for a novice or a 4 year old!” I continued ranting to my mother, “Mom, you know how to use a computer better than them!” She said, “really?” I said, “Yes! And some of those ladies have to sell this crap I am making!” She said, “I can sell the software you make! Why is it so hard?”

My mom being extra cocky there. I was like SURE MOM!

She said, “But do you like your job? Isn’t it much nicer than your previous one? You work in the most beautiful building in the city and the place is so clean and professional.”

I hesitated and couldn’t come up with a good answer. In the back of my head I tried to weigh the pros and cons. However, dealing with women at such a level is driving me insane. Not only that, THEY ARGUE BACK thinking they have better solutions.

How can they argue with a girl, ME, who has been using a computer since she was 5! 5 years old! Coded websites since she was 16, and started doing hard core programming since she was 20! Yet, those women know more. Oh.. it’s that menopausal age where all they care about is talking about their boyfriends and dating regime. I am just going to blame that and ignore the fact that they were hired to deal with software and they just can’t do it.

I cannot express how agonizing it is for me that I see smart individuals out there that cannot find a job in their field or given a chance because they don’t have “the connections” or the “perfectly fitted personality.”

Oh well! Life is not fair. We all get what we deserve and people like me end up with headaches. Thank God they provide me with free ibuprofen at work and free coffee. They have to for all the crap I deal with.

Angry, Blah Blah, Confused, Idiots, Thank you, They said what?, Whatever!

Everyone please read this guest post!

“Okay, so I’ve been wanting to write this for the longest time, but haven’t gotten around to it until today because I assumed things would get better. But they haven’t. I have a big dilemma that I need help with and was hoping that you, the readers, would be able to shed light on my situation and guide me as to what to do. Here goes:

I am in my early twenties and have gotten divorced about a year ago. I was forced to move back in with my parents, against my will. I used to live in North America, but have now moved half way across the world to be with them. Basically, two weeks before I got divorced I assumed my life would resume the same way it had been going for the past few years; I had a job, friends, and lived in a city I love. The only problem with the situation was my husband, my now ex-husband, who I wanted to leave a few months after we had gotten married due to the many problems we had. I stayed with him for two and a half years. I wanted to try everything before giving up on this.

Anyway, so I thought, okay, I am going to get divorced and move in with my brothers, who still live at home (in North America) and continue with my life (this was the original plan my family and I decided). But two weeks before I got divorced my family presented me with the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make: stay living in NA without the support of my family, and basically be disowned by them, or move overseas and start a new life here. Of course, at the time, even though I badly wanted to stay, I moved. I felt like I had no option and I didn’t want to lose my family. They are Arab and Muslim and don’t think that it is right for a Muslim girl to be staying by herself, unmarried, without her family (technically I would have stayed with my brothers, but they didn’t consider that acceptable-even though they are mahrams). They are worried that the gossips back home wouldn’t ever leave me alone. I told them I didn’t care what people said, because I’ve learned through my tough marriage, that people will always talk no matter what.

So I packed up all my stuff, of which I had brought less than half of with me, and sold my furniture and everything else, and prepared to move. It has been a year, and I’ve been very depressed about being here. I am living in a foreign country amongst people who don’t understand me or even try. I left my life and have no job here (I can’t legally work here), I don’t go to school, and I spend my days day-dreaming about what if I had taken the other route. I talk to my friends on the phone, msn, whatever, but of course it is not the same. My parents don’t let me go out without their permission, and don’t let me see people who they don’t know. Basically anytime I make a new friend, I have to have them over for a meet-and-greet with my mom so that she approves of them, and lets me go out with them. I can’t stay out past 9 PM, nor can I get around without asking my dad for rides everywhere. There are no buses here and the only other form of transportation I can take is a taxi, which he doesn’t let me take. I feel trapped, spending most of my days wishing and hoping I can go back. Staring at the window looking at people going about their daily lives and not feeling as though I am a part of it. I sleep a lot, and am home pretty much 95% of the time. I don’t get along with my parents, but I came here to prove to them I am an obedient daughter. And they don’t even seem to realize the sacrifices I’ve made for them.

My whole life I’ve been controlled. First by my family, and being forced to be homeschooled in grade 8, after I’d already been going to a public school for most of my life. I fell into a deep depression which was only briefly alleviated when I got married. I married someone I didn’t love (we talked maybe three times before the marriage took place) and of course, it wasn’t surprising when it ended. He was always lying to me and cheated on me several times. And I only got married to leave my parent’s house thinking I would have a better life with someone (who I thought at the time) wouldn’t be able to control me as they have. My parents are typical Arabs and are very narrow-minded and don’t see my point of view on anything. They’re constantly making me feel like I’m a bad person because I disagree with them on a lot of religious matters, and they are constantly judging the way I look, act, and who my friends are. I don’t feel as though I’ve done anything to warrant this behaviour from them. But they’ve always been like this, and I was stupid to think they would change and be open minded.

Anyway, back to my present situation here…I feel trapped with no way out but the alternative my dad presented me with before I came here. If I leave, I will not be able to contact my family or have anything to do with them, and basically be disowned. But if I stay I feel like my mental sanity is at stake.

I’ve tried to adapt, for a whole year, but it’s been in vain, since my family doesn’t understand me or even care that I am depressed all the time. The only way I feel like I’ll get my life back is to leave. But I’m scared and worried that they’ll do good on their promise to disown me, and I will get punished for it on the day of judgement, for not listening to them. I need help, and if anyone knows of any alternative solution to my problem, I am all ears…Thanks for listening.”

Advice, Confused, Culture, Religion, They said what?

One day, I was walking down the streets and saw a group of young children blowing bubbles with all their might. I wondered why bubbles popped so quickly no matter how big, full of air, and sometimes mixed with saliva traces they can be. Surprisingly, there were barely any traces of the bubbles on the ground.

I looked at the bubbles as they rose in the air and died. It’s like imagining a soul going up to heaven and then suddenly gone that the naked eye no longer sees.

Is our soul like a bubble?

Enough of the whimsical feeling and relating one’s soul to bubbles. How silly is that? “Life is like a bubble, you never know when it is gonna pop,” as Mona sarcastically would say.

What has become of my life? I have been engaging in long endless conversations with that mind of mine. I have never in a million years thought I would end up like this, but then again, who knows what will happen tomorrow. I might fall on my head and wake up thinking that I was overthrown from my duties of being a leader of an underground rebellious cult. Do people still join cults? I think they are called Facebook groups in our modern world.

I will honestly tell you that no matter how much I criticized people living in a bubble because they don’t know any better, it will not justify my willingness to live in one. Yes my drear humble readers, I live in a bullet proof bubble. No intruders and no solicitors welcome. But why is that?

I have managed to eliminate everything from my life for the feeling of quietness. I cannot stand noise. I cannot stand people jumping down my throat and criticizing my every move. Till now, at my age, I still fight with my mother to leave me be. My mother has an instinct or uncontrollable driving force to criticize me in any way possible. I don’t blame her, I was the worst out of the three children she “tried” to raise. The middle child. The forgotten one that is only one remembered when I am needed, and forgotten because I keep secluding my self from the rest of the world.

I am alone in my world. I cannot control this strange joyful feeling. Yet, when one remembers me, it is like the whole world does too. That’s how much I value one person remembering me or thinking of me. Can you imagine so many others as well?

I am different than others. I even perceive others differently then what most people do. I value one’s thought process. I value one’s life from beginning to end. No matter who you are, you are worth that moment of everyone in the world knowing you. Ask your self this, who is the most memorable person you have ever met in your life? They don’t have to be highly intellectual or good doers. Just people. If you can remember such a person, then you are able to penetrate their bubble forever.

Surprisingly, I have a soft side to me as well.

P.S. Ladies at work described me as, “Sweet but edgy.” I wonder what gave them that idea? Hmm …

Advice, Blah Blah, Confused, Random Thoughts, They said what?, Whatever!

Sometimes I wish that I can start all over. I want to go back in that moment in time and change my life’s direction. Have you ever felt that? I know you have.

I keep saying that I don’t regret anything in my life. I live life with the philosophy that things happened and time to move on. However, it’s that feeling that maybe we missed something. Something happened and it shouldn’t have, and I could have controlled it. I wish I didn’t have that feeling, because I keep thinking it is not regret, but the big “if.”

I know I should be a bit more rational and realistic sometimes. I am known to be realistic, to the point and very blunt. But sometimes, my head is way out there. My imagination and feelings are far from reality. I think that’s the problem. I think that’s why I keep thinking that I missed something in the past that could have made my life different. I think that’s the weak point in one’s life where the unrealistic imaginative thoughts and actions cloud reality.

We have to be happy with what we have now and how things shaped up. However, that feeling of unsureness that pops out of no where makes you start questioning things that you should have long ago. So why now?

Is it that dim shadow of loneliness or that fear that things might get worse outlook? Is the future shaped on the past or can it be controlled and changed in direction when we want it to? I am not sure anymore. I learned to just accept things and live day by day, but when will I stop reiterating the phrase, “could have, should have, but didn’t” in my head?

Is this my way of admitting regret?

Blah Blah, Confused, Depressed, Random Thoughts