It’s me again. I have been blah for a while, but I am back to my normal self, whatever normal is. I remember when I was taking psychology at University, and we learned statistics and the norm, and I was like you are kidden right? I am not normal according to some analysis of a selected group of people! How absurd! That’s when I realized as a 19 year old that I am not even close to be defined as one.

You see, most girls would want to get married, settle down, have children, but I have no idea why I don’t want to. It’s not that I don’t want to per say, but what’s the point? I lived 31 years and according to my backward culture, I am far too old and I could be a grandmother, literary. It’s ok! I just gave up with I realized, well, I am not that pretty. I do not have a wow ideal Arabic body. I am very outspoken, very opinionated and I don’t care what I say, because it needs to be said. Also, I don’t communicate with other people. I just go to work, come home and I don’t care to talk. I have 100′s of cell phone minutes that I don’t use at all.

I guess I never wanted to be labeled with that stereotype of a typical Arab and decided to seclude my self. I wonder if people even remember me or know who I am. Have you ever wondered if people still remember you? It’s like you are a walking dead person and people just think you are dead.

Oh what am I talking about. At times I wish I had my own home that I get to decorate my self. I wish I had a garden to plant herbs and flowers. I wish for many things, but I guess people like me are not meant to live the simple life and have to live their lives wondering and imagining things.

i was reading your blog about rebelious arab girl have no idea how i managed to come across such a shallow page, however i sympathise for you because surely your a very insecure individual with serious depression and negativity to come up with such a silly thing, i was born arabian (alhamdullah) my mother is iraqi and my father is lebanese/palestinian, the way i have been brought up has nothing to do with who i am, i grew up in the Uk and i get away with things no race on earth could possibly get away with because my parents are very undersanding and caring, thing is i dont choose to do any rebelious acts because i am a muslimah and nothing on this planet not even love can get between my religion, ive seen plenty of rebelious bitches that are pregnant from there silly acts and your telling me there happier than i am? naa i would rather stay a virgin and get married to one very sexy ARAB guy than lay around getting played about my europeans who are using me for one thing and one thing only. bottom line is your one unsatisfied ugly bitch that stares at her self day in and day out in the mirror trying to find an answer to why you dont fit into your roots, majorly because arabs are beautiful and perfect and you look nothing like them so obviously there going to pick on you

sorry for my honesty
Timaa stunninger arab

And I agree. I am a hideous ugly bitch who is rebellious and screws around all day with guys. I have been pregnant 10 times and every time I had an abortion and I am going to hell for killing 10 lives. Hence, that is exactly what Rebellious means.

God help you.

So, let me explain to you what an Arab really is. You see, us Arabs are culturally reserved and justify everything with old conservative traditions mixed with religion. But you know, we do like all sort of people, especially other Arabs. Almost everyone in our neighbouring area is our cousin of some sort. So if you see us arguing with someone, it is usually someone we know and related to us. We like to discuss world politics and problems, but we don’t really get out of our comfort zone and do something totally different, but use violence instead.

We go to work, raise the kids, and force them to be doctors or engineers if they are a boy. If it’s a girl, then she is luckier, she has to still be educated and be married at 21, but before then is way better. Arab girls my age usually have teenagers by now.

Really, Arabs are cool. They are just misunderstood because they are so passionate about the little things that really have no significant value, but they are important to them. We like to be loud in public and we are the ones that say Bebsi and not Pepsi. We have heavy accents and we translate things in our head purely from Arabic to English without realizing that no one is understanding us and think we are demented.

We like being Arabs! 80%+ of us are Muslims and the Quran is written in the language that we speak and write. We have rich culture and history and we are happy how we turned out. We live our lives in peace and only care who is getting married next, who graduated first, and if the grandkids are fed and raised properly. We are just like any other culture.

We love who we are. Really. But it is so funny because the Arab world occupies over 13,000,000 square kilometres of land mass and we still live in diaspora and leave our homelands. We just like to be all over the place and never satisfied sometimes.

I could say more, but I will get hate mail right now. Oh well. I like being an Arab. It’s in my blood and no matter how much you try to change your self, no matter where you live, you cannot change or deny being one. It’s awesome!

Peace!

Don’t judge an entire culture and religion by their skin colour.

For those naive people that think Arabs are white or Muslims are white should get out of their little nests and see the world around them. We are so diverse, we are so mixed, we are not all WHITE!

Please, I am begging you! For your own sanity and to calm your nerves, we are not all WHITE! And for the most shocking news of all that you did not think about, WE ARE all homo-sapiens! We have a brain and we function just like you too! We are not the bottom feeders of the food chain. I just want to make that clear you know so you stop wondering that all Arabs or Muslims are white or should be white.

I wrote white far too many times in this post. I want to say green now because I am thinking that maybe we are aliens.

Ok enough nonsense. I have to get back to writing and finishing up my stupid course, and then I can be slam dunk all of you!

Arabs marrying non-Arabs

(163 comments)

There is a question that I don’t have a real answer for, but it is the most asked question that people ask me. This question is mostly asked because people think that the Rebellious Arab Girl is such a crazy odd girl who will do anything and everything.

Mona, why don’t you just marry a non-Arab?

What’s wrong with marrying a convert?

Mona, if you don’t like the Arabic culture, why not just marry outside of it and spare us your complaints?

Blah blah blah!

My answer is simple. I was raised a certain way, and I don’t want someone to get accustomed to the way I was brainwashed by the family and arabic culture, and I don’t have to get accustomed to his. However it is my choice, and I never looked down upon Arabs that marry outside of their culture. That is their choice and they have their reasoning to do so. I have no reason to judge, and no one should. I actually understand why they do that most of the time.

Why deal with the Arab in-laws that won’t leave you alone?

Why deal with messed up Arab customs that have no basis or reasoning?

Why deal with Arab backwards ideologies?

Those are just questions, and everyone has an answer to them. Many Arabs marry non-Arabs. It is known throughout history. A lot of people are against it, and I don’t know why. If it effects you directly, then go ahead and be angry about it. All I know is, that each person is held responsible for their own actions. Let them do what they please. Arab male or female, let them be.

I know there are so many problems with interracial marriages, especially the way Arabs perceive it, but what can you do? Arabs are so picky sometimes that they want their sons and daughters to only marry an Arab. However, this Arab has to be from the same country, speaks the same dialect, and is from the same village. What can you do? This is their mentality. Accept it, or leave it.

For me, I don’t have a problem with the interracial marriage thing, which I know why it happens. My problem is Arabs themselves who need to learn to accept each other first as Arabic speaking people. I used to get ridiculed for my messed up Arabic dialect by “other” Arabs who happen to be from the same old country as me. However, I am from a different region, but to them, I am from a different world. Therefore, this mentality is a reason that many Arabs (not me) resort to this solution of getting out of the whole Arabic messed up ideology, and just marry someone who doesn’t even speak the language and end it there.

Would I do it? Probably not. I like my language, and I like being an Arab. However, I am not rushing or ever thinking of this issue. I know there are so many problems in this culture of mine that make me want to abolish my roots, but seriously, it’s not so bad being an Arab. However, I believe that it is logical for an Arab to marry another Arab. If some Arabs think negatively of it, then maybe one day they will see the upside of the whole thing. If those Arabs really want things to change, then maybe they can start by the way they want to live their life, and raise their children in a more modern Arab lifestyle.

You change, things will change, and maybe you might be a little bit happier as a result. Right?

Not every Arab story is similar to Romeo and Juliette’s, where instead of the suicide, the result is the denial of your entire Arab roots. Let’s avoid that, and think of a way to change the messed up ideologies first, eh?

Yet, it is not that easy to become a full time writer. I think trying to express my self lately has taken a down turn and I am not opening up as I used to. I am not going ape shit and trashing something that happened to my life like it used to. I think being a programming has caused the following problem:

I have a serious short attention span in everything else in my life!

I tried everything in my life. Everything! I am so spontaneous in making decisions and just trying them out. I won’t get into the details, but what more can I do?

I think the reason that I tried so many things and I cannot make a decision of what I really like is what is driving me crazy and bogging me down all the time. Also, being an Arab limits my choices. However, being older I can just argue back to my parents and tell them WHATEVER.

My own dad is afraid of me now and he keeps saying, “when did you become this tough?” I tell him, “to survive in this house hold of being an Arab I have to be WAY tougher and sharp tongued to survive!”

It is true, you need to be tough to be an Arab living in a traditional home and balancing your life between western and eastern mentality.

Anyways, I am at work now, and I do not want to work. I feel like Mondays should be the day to get back in the mood and not just jump into work. I just don’t care anymore. I rather write. I miss writing and reading. I have my beautiful sexy Blackberry Playbook and I use it to read books more than anything. Writing is my next task! My real passion.

I am thinking my next project will be fiction and placing short story e-books on my website. I need to focus and make things happen. Screw programming, I did it for too long. I can’t wait to get my project management certification and move on with my life. Oh my patience! It is being tested and stretched out to major limits!

P.S. We should all be Latin dancing! Bailamos mis amigos!

I think I mastered all that by now.

I have been trying to slow down in life. I think I want so much right now that I am missing the bigger picture. I am not enjoying life although I should be. I am not seeing the beauty of it, and I am just stressing over anything. I have a horrible temper when I get home. It is because I cannot release all that anger at work, I do it at home.

Now I release by sweating like a pig. I know it is haram and pure sin to sweat like a pig, but should I be sweating like a horse? Do horses sweat?

Anyways, I will stop being funny. I am bad at it.

However, I want to complain about something. You see, in this prodigious Internet world I chat with many different people because of Facebook and Twitter. What I found out that there is a huge language barrier between me and everyone else. I speak two languages people. One is called Arabic. I know it fluently and I can converse in it. The other is English, I am bilingual. I learned English & Arabic at the same time. So English is not my second language. Both languages I am fairly good at and I can hold up a conversation for more than 5 minutes. Sometimes I use Arabinglish, but who doesn’t combine two ore more languages if they know them all?

Anyways, so my point is, don’t talk to me in English if you can barely speak it. I understand you want to impress me, but I am not easily impressed. I am easily amused though, but not impressed. I am also pretty dumb. I do not “get it.” Whatever you are trying to tell me in English I do not get because:

1. Your grammar sucks.
2. Your sentences don’t make sense.
3. You use the wrong English words thinking it is funny.

Sorry I am being mean. Wait, I am never sorry to be one at all! I am pretty mean and stop talking to me in a language you cannot speak. I READ AND SPEAK ARABIC! So communicate with me that way. I am not Arabic illiterate although I may seem to be. Also, I am not vanilla in English, so don’t use big words like inveterate or truculent. I am a simple person. Just say hi to me and I am 100% satisfied. Also, I have a short attention span and I don’t like to read anything, so “HI” is enough!

I like to write a lot though. Thanks for reading my blog. You are super duper fabulous!

Have a wonderful day!

Actually, I get a lot of emails from non-Arab men. They ask me for advice because they cannot understand how they fell in love with an Arab girl, but her family says no. I do not have an answer for that other than Arabs live in their cultural comfort zones. They love tradition, their culture, their middle eastern heritage, and only understand and want one to be the same.

I know you will say that it is the girl’s choice. I am marrying the girl not the family. Hello! Yes you are marrying the family, but for us Arabs, you are marrying the entire culture! It’s like seeing life in black and white. There is no middle ground for us. If you can break old habits and mesh in some way and be accepted, then you are successful. Otherwise, it is just so hard. It’s like Greeks and Italians and other eastern European countries. It’s a culture that is so intact and close to one another, that it is hard to penetrate.

I do feel your pain though. I really do. However, the other person should have been clear from the beginning before all this escalated to this point. I don’t know what else to say. It’s just a hard situation to deal with. Really hard.

I was very shy. I couldn’t talk properly, I couldn’t put my thoughts together in coherent sentences, or knew how to talk in public, or to others, because I just had this incredible amount of fear inside of me. I felt that whatever I say I will be judged and ridiculed by others. I felt that I had to portray my self in one and only one particular way and that is it! I lived that life up to my mid 20′s and then something changed me. I no longer liked me.

We all battle our inner selves, but it is only natural. However, in my case I was actually ridiculed for the most mundane stupidest unmentionable things. I didn’t know why or understand the reasons behind it, then one day, I put 1 and 1 together, and I realized that this is my life living in an Arab world but not on Arab soil.

Arab mentality drove me to the limit of insanity and extreme depression. Till this day I say, “whatever, YOU ARABS!” Don’t get me wrong, I do love being an Arab with high morals and great fundamental values. I appreciate that and I would not trade my culture or ever want to be someone else. I am grateful, but some things did not play well with me. I had to just end it right there and convince my self that this is not right. Who said it is right to begin with?

I am never going to try to change my roots. Never ever. I wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world.

But how did I change? When did I change? What helped? What didn’t?

I will not say this blog helped. This blog was a side kick to end the problems. It was more of a tool to find a solution and learn from others. I talked to the most incredible people and I have read the most intriguing stories from Arabs that helped me figure out what the real problems were. I know what the problem is now, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why most of you, although you know what so many of the problems are, cannot focus and tell your self that you had enough.

I am not telling you to stop or deny who you are, but I just want you to realize that you cannot continue living your life based on a culture instead of living your life based on YOU! Yes you!

This is my advice and I want you and I will be making it my mission in life is to make sure that Arabs break out of their shell. Break out of that multi-layered very thick Arab infused mentality of thick moldy exterior and wake up. The world around you is totally different and keeps changing, but the principles and habits are all skewed, and cannot keep sustaining you in this world. You will just end up being frustrated and angry all the time, as we can see now in the middle east. Just break that shell!

As I mentioned earlier, making this blog and writing in it since 2005 was really hard. However, it took me 5.5 years to break out of the shell. To be me, and not care about this person, or this mentality, and I just go up to anyone now, even a stranger and I can have a conversation. I can just say hi with my head held high and not care what they think of me or who I am or what I look like that day or why I even talk to a non-Arab or even another random Arab. I don’t need to justify everything, I just do it! Just do what you think you can do. If God judges us all individually, then why do we all have to live our lives the same way and judge each other collectively?

That’s why earlier in my previous blog post today I asked others if they can contribute something meaningful, truthful, honest, and can help others as well. But I found so much resistance from other Arabs because they were afraid to think or even break out of their shells. They are content. Fine. As long as you are happy, then that’s wonderful. But I know deep down inside of you, you wish you were someone else. Isn’t better to just be you then living in some dream. Don’t you think?

It is probably the hardest thing I have struggled with in my entire 30 years. I am easily distracted, and I am the one that causes these distractions. I feel life is too short to just do one thing at a time, so I go over board and end up doing too many things at once, then I exhaust my self and end up dead tired and unmotivated by 5pm. It is sad, but I need a new routine in life.

I solved one problem by acting like my true blunt self today, went up my boss and told her, “I NEED TO FOCUS! STOP GIVING ME TOO MANY SIDE PROJECTS AND EXPECT ME TO GET ANOTHER HUGE PROJECT DONE! I WANT FOCUS FOR JUST ONE DAY!”

That went well! Yikes! No wonder managers are afraid of me!

So, I know many of you have emailed and messaged me on Facebook saying to stop talking about work if I don’t like it and just look for another job. Yeah, jobs are all lined up for me waiting with just a snap of my finger for me to say, “Yeah Baby! Booya!” Reality bites, and I live in a city where technology is just a secondary source to do business.

On a more positive note, yaaay! I am positive and focused. Beat that suckers!

Oh, side note! For those marketers that keep emailing me asking me to put up poker ads or sex toys advertisements on my site, really need to get a reality check! Arabs don’t gamble publicly and have a great poker face when they go home at night, and they don’t need sex toys, they always have a whip or belt ready at their disposal!

Also, what’s up with the Saudi lady posting her driving skills on YouTube? You break a messed up law, you will get arrested. She was being way too rebellious and kind of stupid. Women throughout the world have fought for their rights, and maybe KSA is the last country to consider women as anything but mere objects, but posting on YouTube is not “the modern way” of expressing your self in such a strict convoluted man ruled society. There are other ways you know. Like don’t get married. Period. Or abstain from sex! Lower the birth rate! And since women live longer than man, then the problem will be solved in 50 – 60 years!

Oh, umm.. there are other problems in the world about the Palestinians and Israels and all these peace talks, but I donno. I refrain from politics on my blog. Maybe some day in my life time I will visit my real home, the holy land. Until then, people need to find a way to get along and stop using hatred and negativity as the main driving force for peaceful talks.

By the way, I only know about world news from people I follow on Twitter. It is easier to read blurbs from others than reading or watching politically biased news reports.

Follow me on twitter: @rebelliousgirl
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Lots of hugs and kisses on this Tuesday evening! Mwaaah!!