March 18 2004

Les Berges Du Lac

Or the “lake” in English, is the name of the fascinating area I work in. When I first came to Tunisia, I was amazed by this place. I felt it was different than other places in Tunisia. And although I am against using water surfaces for building purposes, but still, I couldn’t help it, I loved “Les Berges du Lac”. Yes that’s true, all the beautiful shopping centers, nice wide streets and those entertaining compounds were once waters of a huge lake. But since the lake caused only some bad smell and added more mosquitoes to its surroundings, they have decided to cover the water and use the surface to create this beautiful place which has become the attraction of most of the embassies and international companies’ headquarters, in short it has turned into a high-class investment area. Simply because , besides companies, only high-class people can afford buying land or apartments or villas over there, which are all big and really beautiful 🙂 But since most of the land was used in building shopping centers and office buildings, one can say it’s more like a commercial area than a place to actually live in.
Where we used to live earlier, “Les Berges du Lac” was around 25 minutes far (in a car that is), I loved it, and I used to go so often when I had no job (and nothing to do in my life :P) just to pass some good time looking at the stores, enjoying the noise of the crowded cafes and simply having fun in a place I love. Back then I wished that somehow it will become a part of my life which I’ll get to see or be in more often. My wish was coming true step by step. First we discovered this great DVD store, and well, with a husband who considers movies his oxygen, “Les Berges du Lac” did become a place we go to so often, lol. Later on, this “lake” place became only 5-10 minutes away from us as we moved into another apartment so close to my beloved lake 🙂 so when we get bored all we have to do is pay a visit to the lake for a change. Anyway, it never crossed my mind that I’ll ever become more attached to the lake, so you can imagine how happy I was when I got hired in one of the companies over there. And lucky me, when I started working, the place of the company moved, so from just being in “Les Berges du Lac”, it became BY the beautiful lake, specially my office that is 😉 I was truly thrilled. Every morning I get to enjoy the view of the blue peaceful lake, until the rest of the population decides to wake up and be more active disturbing the peacefulness with the noise of their cars and motorbikes 😛 And what I find really artistic is the reflection of the buildings and the clouds on the water specially in sunset, it’s great, and more beautiful is the view of the sun itself. But well, don’t ask about the wind, one of the reasons I got constantly sick is the strong wind, sometimes I feel I’ll be flying like one of these kids’ balloons, lol, imagine that!
What I love most about “Les Berges du Lac” is the fact that it’s so close to the Tunis-Carthage Airport. So planes have to pass over it in their takeoff and landing. It’s amazing, it’s noisy though. And when it’s too windy, or too cloudy, or when there is kind of a storm, I get all stressed out and worried and keep on praying for the planes to have a safe trip. I can’t get my eyes off of them till they are no longer visible 😛 But the best part is watching my one and only beauty, the Royal Jordanian plane, aaahhh, every time I watch it in the process of landing I can smell Amman and feel the beautiful weather of Jordan. I feel that my family is up there, sometimes I feel like screaming: “HEY, I’m over here!!” it’s really pathetic, isn’t it! But what can I do, I get all excited and I get a sudden flashback of all the beautiful memories I have of Jordan and the ones I miss like hell. But well, watching the RJ plane landing is –to me- so much better than watching it leaving to Jordan without me on it 🙁 The day I glimpse the plane taking off I get this feeling students get when missing their bus, and then I wonder: God, if I was on that plane I’ll be between my family members on dinner! And start hating myself 🙁 But well, looking at the bright side, I get to see the dear Royal Jordanian every now and then, and seeing it revives all the beautiful emotions I have locked inside me, which is better than nothing, right!
Other than the shops and restaurants, “Les Berges du Lac” has the “Dah Dah” entertainment compound, I love it. Not to forget the bowling centers there are in the “lake”, God I love bowling 🙂 And there is also this “Miami” complex, a place stuffed with cafes and restaurants with a direct view of the lake. It’s specially recommended in summer when they have some extra entertaining activities (DJ’s and dancing shows for the little ones).
I heard that they might cover another part of the “lake” and create a similar area parallel to it on the opposite side, I wish they don’t, the water should be kept, it will be a great loss.
Yippee, here comes another plane 🙂 I just remembered when I took my sister to Miami, we were sitting and the planes were too close as if they were landing right there where we were, we could see the tires and the very little details, lol, can’t forget the scared look on her face, because I had the very same look the first time I went there 🙂
Well, I guess I can go on forever talking about “Les Berges du Lac”, it’s one of my two favorites in the capital Tunis, the other one is the adorable classy “Carthage”. So if you’re thinking of visiting Tunisia soon, don’t forget to take a look at the “lake”, you’ll remember me and say: damn, she was right 🙂

March 17 2004

Wie Schimpft Man Auf Englisch? :)

Ich finde es ganz wichtig für uns alle, die Schimpfwörter anderen Sprachen zu wissen, nicht um zu kennen, wie man andere Leute auf ihren Sprachen shimpft, sondern um es zu erkennen, ob anderen uns shimpfen oder sich einfach unterhalten.
Also testen Sie Ihre Schimpfwörterkenntnisse jetzt und verbessen Sie Ihr Vokabular. Ich habe den Test selbst probiert, und es war geil.
Viel Spaß! 🙂

March 17 2004

Another Crazy Story…

“Aaron Kinard was eating cookies and drinking milk when his father shot him and his mother Sunday”, CNN reported, “The boy remained motionless on the floor until his father shot and killed himself”.
So I guess nothing solves a person’s problem, or cools down his anger better than a bullet to blow off his “once upon a time” beloved ones.
Congratulations! You solved the riddel…
For more details on this terrible story ClickHere

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March 16 2004

Jordan Leads The Child Safety Program In The Arab World

Children, the blossom of life, the base of society, the past us, and the future generation. It’s them who give this life a taste and it’s to them we owe our happiness. They are the most important as they are the ones to build on what we already built, add to what we’re adding, and maybe destroy what we’ve spent centuries building. Yes, the children absorb what we offer. If we offer them good treatment, care, love and stability, they’ll grow to be constructive, responsible and mature members of society. If we did them wrong and took away their rights from them, then we’ll end up having pathetic fearful persons, or violent criminals. Therefore and from this belief in the importance of children, her Majesty Queen Rania launched the Jordan River Children Program in 1997. A program that cares for the well being of children and supports families in their task of nurturing children.
And recently, in the end of February 2004, Jordan hosted the first Arab Conference of the International Society for Child Protection. As a result Jordan started out its Child Safety Program, in an attempt to preserve the rights of children and solve all their problems. The main concern of the program is to protect the children from physical and sexual abuse that might be practiced on them through their parents, or relatives or outsiders. It also reveals all ways, symptoms and reasons for the abuse, as well as offer help to the families, different levels of legal punishment to the parent and shelter to the child. Above all this the program covers the medical treatments of children who are subject to abuse and insures the psychological treatment for both the child and the parent.
The Child Safety Program works along with the ministries of Social Development, Health and Education, and the Family Protection Unit of the Public Security Directorate, providing all kinds of relevant and needed services.
The program operates through two existing centers that are maximizing their available resources and facilities to meet their goals and serve the community: The Dar Al-Aman (Child Safety Center), which is the first in Jordan and the Arab world. The duty of this center is to temporarily shelter and to offer psychological, medical, social and educational care for children victims of physical and sexual abuse and neglect. And the Jabal Al-Naser Prevention Center to increase awareness of healthy child-rearing practices that gradually decrease the incidence of child abuse and neglect.
The Child safety program discusses the reasons behind the passive role of other family members who find out about the child abuse but choose to remain silent, which are mostly: the fear of scandal, or the fear of losing the financial support of the parent or the fear of the power of the parent.
If you turn on the Jordan TV Channel you’ll notice the media campaign which aims at spreading awareness and providing instructions to children and parents, showing them the way to lead healthy life, and directing them to where they could find help and shelter. I find this really impressive and helpful. Parents or any other strangers will reconsider their behavior and children will be stronger and more aware of their rights and where to go and who to turn to in case of being a victim of abuse.

Way to go Jordan, keep up the good work 🙂
For more information about the Child Safety Program in Arabic you can check ZavenOnline
whose program (Sireh Wenfatahet) on Future TV talked about this issue yesterday.
And for more information about the Jordan River Foundation and its other programs ClickHere
Hoping that all other Arab countries will follow the steps of Jordan to make sure our precious children are in safe hands.

March 16 2004

Anti-AquaCool ;)

I’ve always wanted to become a writer one day, but somehow when I had to make up my mind what to study in university, I chose to learn languages and literature instead of being specialized in one language and its writing styles. The reason is my love to learning new languages, on the other hand I wanted to open the door to more new cultures. But still I love writing. It’s one of the things I enjoy most. And when I created this blog, all I wanted was to write about topics I feel are worth discussing, I didn’t want it to be a tool to convince people of my own point of view, neither did I want to use it to brainwash the readers, it’s simply a very personal blog where I post a very personal opinion in a very personal way of writing, nothing more, nothing less.
I never claimed being a great writer, neither did I mention that I have a perfect knowledge of writing methods. I use the simplest words, apply the simplest rules, and give the simplest examples from my surrounding. This is me, and this is my style.
Therefore if any of you have something against my way of writing, or think it’s not good enough, here you go a little useful piece of advice: take it easy guys, and instead of wasting your time visiting my blog every now and then, and instead of wasting space in your own blogs to link to my “poor writing” posts, why don’t you try to link to those you admire, enjoy and find the best?
As for me, I’m so proud of my writings, and I’m so happy with my style, and I’ll keep on blogging for those who love my writing and who like my way of discussing issues even if they don’t agree with me and what I think.

March 15 2004

Old-Fashioned Grandma ;)

Did it ever cross your mind that one day your grandchildren might call you “old-fashioned”? Well I always think of this myself. Every time I watch TV and have this smile on my face when I see how people used to do their hair or match their clothes, and every time I watch pictures of the family many years ago, I wonder, how would it be like if my grandchildren laugh at the way I used to look??
I’m not talking about fashion as in wearing everything people call modern and stylish, I just mean this trend that labels each decade. I consider myself a modern person, although I never follow the latest fashion trends, unless I find them tasteful and appropriate for both my environment and character, which is really rare 😉
Anyways, what amazes me is that there are people who we never find old-fashioned even if they were following the latest trends, that’s because their trends are somehow similar to ours, or because we are following the trends of their time. When I look at my pics as I was a teenager, and although I didn’t imitate girls of my age in the way I used to dress myself, but still I can feel the old-fashioned touch in my hair, loool. It was cute and was admired by people back then, actually it is coming back nowadays, but I don’t think I’m much into it 😉
On the other hand, my parents for example, when I look at their pictures, the only things I really feel were old-fashioned are the glasses, and the wide cut trousers they used to wear. Maybe also the thick belts on the waist 🙂 Another difference is the color, they used to wear multicolored shirts and costumes, nowadays we wear bright colors, but I don’t know, I feel the guys back then used to wear more colors in one piece and used to also wear shirts with flowers on them more than guys would in our time 🙂 I really love comparing old and modern styles of everything, I find it interesting!
Another thing I think of is what more new things fashion people could create in the time of my grandchildren? What would their “modern look” look like? Would their outfits look crazier? More colorful? What would the most used material be? How would their shoes look like? What kinds of cuts would there be to invent?
Whatever their fashion trends would look like, I don’t really care, I just hope that they wont end up having a fashion that reveals more than it covers, and that provokes the instinct more than it respects the body, although I’m not very optimistic about that.
Whatever their fashion will be, there is a very big possibility that they’d think of me as old-fashioned, and they might even avoid asking me about what they should wear or how they look. I wont be sad for that, I’ll just laugh when I compare myself to them when I was their age, and well I’ll sure remember this post and wonder if they would post something similar… only if blogs weren’t old-fashioned by then 😉

March 15 2004

Und Elli War Es!

Nach Monaten vom Warten wurde endlich den SuperStar Deutschlands am Sonntag entschieden. Die zwei Finalistinnen : Elli und Denise waren echt nervös während den Anrufen der Zuschauern, trotzdem haben die beiden ihren Talent ganz gut gezeigt. Sie durften drei Songs singen. Die beiden haben unvergleichbar mit Gefühl auf Englisch gesungen. Es war einfach toll.
Die Fans der beiden waren total begeistert und unterstützeten Denise und Elli auf eine einzigartige Art und Weise. Die Fans waren nicht nur den “SuperStar” Zuschauer, sondern auch Familie, Fruenden und Verwandten der beiden Finalistinnen.
Die Entscheidung war sehr schwer, denn die beiden echt brilliant waren. Die zwei sind eigentlich sehr unterschiedlich, im Bezug auf die Stimme und Styl. Jede hat ihre eigene Vorteile.
Nach einer besonderen Leistung stand nach Mitternacht die Siegerin fest : die 24-jährige Elli aus Regensburg holt den Titel. Andererseits gratulierte die Konkurrentin “Denise” die rothaarige Siegerin “Elli” mit Umarmung und Küsschen. Es war echt genial.
Ich finde diese RTL-TalentShow wirklich geil!
Obwohl keine von ihnen der SuperStar war, Denise und alle anderen Konkurrenten, haben eine grosse Chance Stars zu sein, denn sie wunderschöne Stimme haben.
Also viel Glück für den SuperStar Elli, und der Star Denise und alle andere, die uns nette Zeit gegeben haben.
Mehr Details über die RTL SuperStar Show findet man Hier und mehr über Elli ist in ihre FanPage vorhanden.

March 12 2004

Wave Of Bombings In Spain!

Yesterday morning 10 powerful explosions tore through trains and stations killing more than 200 civilians. And although Spain is used to get such terrible attacks from the ETA terrorist group, but still the fact that a newspaper in London got a claim from a group working in the name of Al- Qaida, made people point to “Muslim Terrorists” as their Nr.1 suspect. Other than that police found a van in Alcalá de Henares, 15 miles east of Madrid, with an Arabic tape in it.
Now whether it was ETA or Al-Qaida, innocent people have been killed for no reason. And all Muslims know that killing civilians is against the peaceful religion of Islam. Therefore people who claim doing such awful things in the name of Islam are trying to fool around and are lying to the world. They shouldn’t be called Muslims.
But what really amazes me is how the word Muslim can work like magic. Once this word is said in bad context, there is nothing that could ever beat the speed of it spreading. It is a word to name danger and savage behaviors. But when it is used to name some genius inventions, impressive activities and one of a kind creativity, this word finds no place to be mentioned, and if it did, then it will get the smallest and most hiding place. Why? Because of some maniacs who express their personal sick thinking in the name of Islam!
For more details about the explosions Click Here

March 12 2004

The California Supreme Court Halts Same-Sex Marriages In San Francisco

So yesterday the court issued an interim stay directing officials to stop allowing same-sex marriage. This temporary stay will presumably be in force until May or June, when oral arguments in the case will be presented.
Of course gay couples aren’t happy with the court’s order. The ones who were able to “make it” before the halt considered themselves lucky and were happy for their achievement, yet sorry for those who couldn’t make it. On the other hand, the ones who missed the “chance” were really pissed off since they were planning for their “romantic” weddings for so long and have already spent fortunes.
Gays and lesbians cried and were full of anger as a reaction to the halt.
What I find “remarkable” though is that ever since Mayor Gavin Newsom permitted gay marriage in February, more than 3,400 gay couples got married. 3,400 calculating only gay couples who want to get married that is. More Details
Actually I still don’t get it. Gay people believe they have the right to choose marriage as a happy ending for their love stories. They forget that love was never selfish. It was never only about two people, it was never about taking from society to fulfill personal interests, and it will never be a bed relationship. Love is a precious gift God has given us to add more beauty to this life by realizing its norms, maintaining its natural balance and being aware of what pushes civilizations forwards and what holds them back. If we love then we learn to give asking for nothing in return but the well-being of who we love. And who we love can never be one, because one is a part of a whole.
If love is to build a healthy society and help solve its already existing problems, then it shall never find a way better than marriage to give it stability and protect its union.
But well, I guess a healthy society is the one in which one can no longer see anything wrong even if it was against logic, morals, religion, nature, law, rules and awareness. On the other hand gay marriage wont add to the worlds problems, it might add some difficulty in explaining what’s right and what’s not. It might delete the word “appropriate”, cross out “traditions” and cancel “manners” but who cares, those are signs of fear and uncivilized thinking anyway, right!
Why don’t we look at the bright side! Same-sex marriage will only add to the world’s suspense. Men will be living their lives confused whether to marry women, or go for men. And women will be living their lives guessing if they should consider their great feelings towards their colleagues as friendship so they should become best friends, or is it maybe love and attraction, so they should become “wives”!! Isn’t this wonderful? Thinking of it, same-sex marriage is hell of a fun indeed. And you know what, why don’t courts start considering “improving” the term marriage from the “union of two people” into the “union of two and above people”, this way we’ll make sure all those who are in love will get married. I mean what if a person is bisexual doesn’t they have the right to marry the ones they love?! That’s not fair. This should be considered, we’re talking about human rights here 😉

March 11 2004

On This Very SPECIAL Day…

Today is one of the most beautiful days of the year, not because of its weather, neither because of my great mood, but for one single reason: its date.
On this date, several years ago, my best friend and my one and only love came into the world. Yes, today is my husband’s birthday 🙂
So Happy Birthday Subzero Blue, I wish you all the best of luck in everything you do. You deserve the best, I’m not being nice here, I’m just being honest.
You’ve always been there for me, you’ve always been my trustful friend and the guy to make the day.
You’ve been a wonderful fiancé, and God knows you’re a wonderful husband. We’ve been through some hard times, and we might face more difficulties in life, but nothing really matters as long as we’re together, we’ll work it out somehow, just like we always do. And I want you to know, that having you means the world to me. And being with you makes my life away from my family and friends less painful. You always give me hope, strength and support. Because of you I believe in true love and kindness.
I want you to know how much I appreciate knowing you, and I thank God for joining us together.
And I want you to know that not only did you win my love, but also my family’s. You’ve become a beloved son and a dear brother, whom they miss, respect, love and pray for ever since they met.
And I’m sure all your friends and colleagues in Jordan remember you and think of you all the time. It’s all because you’re easy to love, and hard to forget.
Happy Birthday again, and may all your wishes come true 🙂

God Bless You My Love…