I Believe in Ghosts

I think everyone passed by that deserted old house with the broken windows and the beat down shutters and imagined that maybe it was haunted, maybe if we got too close we’d hear weird sounds. There were always the weird scratching sounds outside our windows when we’re home alone at night. Once, I went around the house holding this really huge torch because I was confused we had intruders and (as if) I was going to hit him on the head with it. We’ve all seen ghost movies going from Casper and ghost busters to movies like darkness falls, the ring, Gothika, and the grudge (that one was way too creepy to consider watching its sequel). I am also a huge fan of horror stories that happen to include ghosts or something like them almost all the time. I don’t believe in ghosts in the sense of all the above, that’s just entertainment and mind tricks. The ghosts I believe in are different.

The Personal National Project

It seems that we’ve all been looking for a cause lately. We’ve been cooped up for so long that it seems only natural to want to get out there and do something for the sake of the country and for our sakes as well. We’re thirsty for that sense of achievement; doing something for the sake of doing something, achieving it and succeeding. Who can blame us? After all, we’ve had a revolution and we actually did what we set out to do. To have our own baby project, wouldn’t that be something?

Simple Pleasures

I went to visit a friend for advice, and he is a really good advisor. It was more career advice but ended up being a series of sessions about life, the universe, and everything. thankfully, we did not come up with the number 42 anywhere in our conversations. He asked me a question on our first session, and I literally COULD NOT answer no matter how hard I tried. The question was, “what do you feel like doing right now?”

Fahrenheit 451–Reality Imitating Fiction

I haven’t written a book review in forever, nor was I ever good at writing book reviews even though I’m an avid reader. The first time I read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, I was a kid; it was a translated pocket book edition. I remember liking it and thinking it was so very weird. It didn’t make sense to me then, but then I was only a kid with pigtails and could not grasp where the world was going. Earlier this year, a 50^th anniversary edition of the book was released and I could not help but buy it. I’m not a fan of rereading something but all I could say is that “it called to me”.

NOT Rediscovering Silence!

At a time in my life, I had discovered silence. Talk was way too cheap to matter anymore. Anything anyone said was a bunch of complaints about life, traffic, culture, art, work, family, expenses, the country, the world, the hungry children in Mozambique, and so on and so forth. We went from one negative circle to another. People were actually afraid to tell anyone any good news because since bad news was everywhere, they’ll probably get envied, then jinxed, and thus would never be happy again. So I decided first not to talk, then not to listen.

My Life’s Soundtrack–All Bon Jovi All the Time!

I tell my friends that I can make a soundtrack for my life using only Bon Jovi songs. One of them dared me to tell her that soundtrack, and so I am telling her and the rest of the world how Bon Jovi’s songs can tell my life’s story:

Letters of a Sleep Deprived Person

1 May 2011, 09:29 AM

Dear Sleep,
Toz fi 7adretak, who needs you, if you think I’ll hang around waiting for you, you’re dreaming, and if you think that I’m upset because you come and go very quickly then you’re jut being stupid. You’re as important as vermin and I will move on with my life and live it to the max. in the end, you’ll come whether you like it or not when I take my allergy medicine and then let’s see you complain sucker!!!
Yours truly,
A sleep deprived Dina

*****

3 May 2011, 10:46 PM

Dear Sleep,
let's call a truce; I'll go to sleep now and will wait for you to come. When you do, please come alone, you don’t have to bring the dreams along, and don't leave too early.. I promise I'll stop calling you names!
Sincerely yours,
An exhausted and sleep deprived Dina

*****

Reply to Salonat

By Nehal Bassiouny

My Best Friend Nehal wrote this as a reply to my post: What Happens in the Salon Stays in the Salon. So I’m waiting for your comments on that one

“This is the first thing i write since forever:)It was inspired by my dear and oldest friend Dina El Maamoun:) i hope you like it or at least dont hate it too much:) your comments are welcome:)

First of all,you  must all know that this  is not based on any personal experience..i ve never been in a ‘salonat’ situation up till now(el7)..and I m sure it is hard at least at first..i also know that it would be especially hard for someone like me..i would be very shy and you just know how I get when I am shy and I don’t feel comfortable:)

Tied to the Water Wheel

The road to discovering one’s soul is rugged, probably because it is less travelled. We seem to move on with our lives and wake up one morning on a birthday perhaps and think “OMG! I got one year to do everything I wanted to do before I hit 25!” or it could be “I’m forty, too late!” I did the first one on my 24^th birthday but I definitely do NOT want to do the second. I’m pretty sure (since most of the people I know are under 40 so you, dear reader, are probably under 40 too) you do not want the second either.

The Gate of The Conqueror

We parked the car at the usual parking spot when we go to Al-Hossein area and Khan-El-Khalily. We walked up that street that would eventually take us to Al-Hossein but on the other side of the street. We weren’t going to Al-Hossein though as we usually do. And I actually had no idea where we were going! My friend decided to take me to a tour of old Cairo; a very brief tour unfortunately. But he decided we end it here, I had no idea where “here” was.

What Happens in the Salon Stays in the Salon

My mom keeps dropping the “Salonat” (arranged marriage) bomb on me ever since I broke off my previous engagement. At first the time intervals between each bombing would be a bit large; a couple of months. Lately, the intervals have been getting smaller and smaller, especially that a lot of her friends’ daughters seem to be getting hooked Salonat style.

A Tribute to My Best Friends (3)

Omar Nouh – Nou7y – Miro – Niazy Sameh

I’ve delayed this as much as I can since I can never really talk enough about Omar. I sat next to Omar on the same desk in the 2^nd grade. I’m a leftie and he’s right-handed and we always crashed our elbows together. I don’t know if it never occurred to us or if there was an actual reason validated by our 7 year old brains that made us not switch places so we wouldn’t crash our elbows together. Omar has always been annoying, that’s a fact I think everyone who ever knows him will tell you. But the fact is that in the 2^nd grade, he taught me to say “El7amdulellah” after sneezing, and that he was never annoyed by me when I called him daily to get the math homework.

Freedom Vs. Social Responsibility

“We’re free!” I’ve been hearing this, and saying it, for around 2 months now. It’s a statement that we, as Egyptians, are not familiar with. I’m not quite sure if we fully understand it either. We’re saying we’re free because we’re rid of a tyrant and trying to get rid of anything relating to that tyrant, even the history that gave that tyrant control (so we’re actually violating the right of the people to come for honest history). We’re using this freedom to attack, defend, and ridicule ideas and people. This is not freedom! So I ask: what is freedom?

The “On The Run” Experience–Saba7 El Foll

Last year, I made the unfortunate decision of doing my masters degree. Yes, I know, stupid of me to even consider it after losing faith in the entire educational system, but I did it. The classes started at 3 pm. I lived and worked in Maadi and had to be at Cairo University at 3 pm 2 days a week, which means I had to be at work at 7 am, stay there till 2:30 pm, drive off to college and probably arrive a bit late, then get back home during rush hour to catch up on the work I’ve missed because of having to leave in the middle of the working day. This also means that I had to spend the 7.5 hours of work glued to my seat in front of a computer screen WORKING!

Big Ugly Things – A Poem

I don’t know why I put this on facebook and not on my blog. I wrote this poem on November 27^th 2010. This is my first poem in more than 10 years,I'm not much of a poet but my muse seemed to insist on it tonight. Under the circumstances of the new revolution, I sure hope it’s out of place

It’s a big ugly world

With big ugly words

And big ugly creatures

Roaming this earth

Big ugly men

With big ugly egos

They make big decisions

That come down to two zeroes

Lessons Learned from: Rework (the book)

I usually like to write my own thing but I think there is nothing wrong with learning a couple of things from reading. I’m not a big reader of non-fiction, I’ve even listened to the audio version of this book, not exactly read it. But it is SO good that' I’ve listened to it twice, and I implore every project manager to READ it! Maybe it’ll change their mentality about life as much as it did to me. I also implore all you wannabe entrepreneurs to read it, maybe you’ll do more than me and actually achieve what you want in life


Rework is a book written by some people from a Software Company called 37signals, which seems to be pretty successful. It’s only relationship to software is that it is written by people who actually practice it, and because in my opinion, managing software projects is like 24/7 crisis management! so those are the tough guys (mel a5er keda)!
These are my favorite quotes from the book, I think some are reworded by yours truly but I hope the idea is there. Make reading this count

• Other people’s mistakes are OTHER people’s mistakes
  
• Learn from your successes not from your mistakes
  
• Plans are GUESSES
  
• Plans are inconsistent with improvisation
  
• Plan small; this week not this year
  
• Make decisions now when they’re needed, not 2 weeks in advance
  
• Expansion is not a goal!
  
• Workaholics make up for intellectual laziness with brute force!
  
• Scratch your own itch
  
• Write with the purpose of being read
  
• A brilliant idea is just an idea until you start implementing
  
• No time is no excuse
  
• Don’t let yourself make excuses
  
• The perfect time never arrives
  
• Keep in mind why you’re doing what you’re doing as you grow
  
• Inspiration = NOW!

Finally, my favorite:

• Make a dent in the universe!

Technorati Tags: Rework,37signals,quotes,management,plan,entrepreneur

A Tribute to My Best Friends (2)

Nehal – nounou
It’s funny how some people seem to have eternal souls, or maybe it’s eternal chemistry. I’ve known Nehal since 2^nd primary. We were sitting in adjacent desks and we both couldn’t stand the people next to us in the desks so we ended up switching. No that was not when we became best friends; we became best friends in 5^th primary mind you! I have to admit, I could not STAND her at first for some reason, really couldn’t, and all of a sudden we’re inseparable!

What to do with Mubarak’s Carpets

A friend of mine challenged me to write a blog post about what we’re going to do with all the carpets with Mubarak’s face on them, hanging all over the country in public enterprises. At first I didn’t think much of it: “Walk on them of course!” I thought. Then I thought why not do a diversity exercise of all the things we really CAN do with the valuable resources that are the carpets!

1- Walk on them

2- The people in Tahrir could use them as blankets in the cold nights (I’m sure they’ll be really warm), but they’re going to have to wear them with his face on the inside to avoid getting beat up

3- Burn them as fuel instead of coal (or in barbeques)

4- Give them to the apprentice carpet makers to learn practice on

The Boys have become Men!

The moment I got into college, I’ve learned that the types of people are not the ones I had always dealt with everyday. There were so many social classes and so many different ideologies about who is what. I spent the first couple of years being very picky about who I talk to and how I deal with people unfoundedly, which was of course a major mistake since everyone hated me and stereotyped me as a snob. That was probably true I guess. I spent the years that followed living life normally; no more snobs, and figured out how wrong I was about almost everyone I knew. But this is not what I am writing about, I think we’ve all gone through this (culture?) shock, and if you, dear reader, have not been to college and seen that yet, then trust me, someday you will!

A Tribute to My Best Friends (1)

Ahmed Mostafa – Ahmed Hussein – Ahmed Aboul Makarem – Einiz – Eini – Lofty – plain old Ahmed :)

I decided since my friends are such an integral part of my life that I should tribute each of them to tell them how much they mean to me, now and forever after. And if for some reason we do not continue to be friends, at least I will still have showed them how much they mean to me now, which in my opinion is duly deserved. I tried to write about friends before but it was in the general context, so this is me saying: let’s get specific!

The first person I decided to “tribute” is Ahmed Mostafa Mohamed Hussein Aboul Makarem. Yes this is his full name because almost every segment of it has been used throughout his life, to the extent that when I introduced him to some of my other friends, they got confused as to what his name actually is! The reason he is first is because he one of the oldest and closest friends I have, and because he’s actually been nagging me to write this for a very long time now. So Eini, here you go :)

My Brother's Getting married!!!

My brother is getting married! This is a very bitter sweet thing for me. I am definitely happy for him and I love his wife to be, but it will still be a transition in my life as well as his. And since I’m having a lot of mixed feelings, I decided to bug you readers about it too (why should it be only me who’s bugged?) so here’s the deal.

The analysis of Analysis

I have just been to a session about philosophy, a sort of lecture, and the instructor has gone into the topics of analysis and synthesis. His idea was that analysis is not a good thing, and over-analysis is of the devil I guess (kidding :)). Even though I agree that analysis can be overwhelming at some point; the fact that you break down something into every tiny little spec of detail related to it remotely or otherwise, I do believe that proper analysis is a good thing, as long as we keep the bigger picture intact.

The Devil in me

When I was around 7 or 8, my dad got me a gold locket as a present (probably birthday present but I can’t really remember), but my dad and the jeweler were friends so my dad took the locket without really paying much attention to it. In his defence, he was incredibly short sighted and he worked really long hours, poor guy was beat every time he came home from work. So, Daddy presented me with the locket. At first when I saw it, I didn’t really get what he meant, but I accepted it and thanked him and kissed him and hugged him and all that. Then my mom took a look at it, she is incredibly far-sighted, and she couldn’t tell what it was either. I understood that my father got tricked really into buying the locket by his jeweler friend, and told my parents what the locket was; a tiny devil!

The Theory of Friends

I got 403 friends on Facebook, that of course means real friends, close friends, friends of friends, family friends, coworkers, acquaintances, people I don’t really know but I’ve seen around, some people that I may actually dislike (very few though), and the list goes on. But in reality, I always seemed to have a sort of 1 close friend ever which is variable depending on my position in life at the moment, and some which are constant across several years. I have close friends and old friends and close friends who are old friends (or is it the other way around?).
I have also had my share of friends lost and friends forgotten. I say good riddance to some, I regret losing some, and some friendships are just broken beyond repair. There were times in my life when I went around without friends at all (I’m talking about the real deal not the Facebook people); if I needed to talk, there was no one there to talk back (the mirror worked fine then), and there was nothing to listen to, just the voices in my head. And since some of the lost friends were gone with some bloodshed, at some point in life, I made the decision to not have any close friends; the mirror still worked fine, and the voices kept me busy when there was no mirror around. I made this decision to save everyone a lot of blood, and to save whatever I had left of it running through my veins. But I guess that didn’t work all that well either. This is where I came up with The Theory of Friends. I don’t think that I am the only one who has reached that conclusion, in fact I know I am not the only one who has reached that conclusion, but I’ll still explain it all the same.

The geeky T-shirt

I was out shopping a few days ago and I saw a T-shirt that I just HAD to buy! In my opinion, It represented a lot fo what I stand for, which is the bookish, geeky, yet interesting and funny type of person (at least I hope I do, please don’t burst my bubble). It looked cute, made me smile, made the people who noticed what it says smile, and it had a very profound message to all mankind.

The Quest for­­­ the Waffle

A few weeks ago, my friend Sara and I decided to go on an adventure of rediscovering Cairo. We’d planned to go to the Coptic museum and maybe visit some of the ancient religious sites in the area of Masr-El-Kadeema (Yes we are very adventurous, we go to museums!!). The day was set, we had a plan, we got the directions from google, and we got up early in the morning – 9 am is very early for Saturday morning – and we set off. But first, breakfast! We were going to have waffles.

The Infamous Potential

I've always been in that situation where certain people are expecting certain things from me, and other people are not expecting things from me directly but are expecting me to "go places" so to speak. This should be something I'm proud of, shouldn't it? I mean here I am, early 20's (not so early anymore but I refuse to feel older except when I need to) with my life ahead of me and the world at the tip of my finger just waiting to be grasped. And I'm wasting my life with ideas that never fall through and people that never stand up to responsibilities and here I am wanting so badly to do everything because I can do it better than how it is already done, or at least I got this complete idea that I can… which is of course wrong. But hell, I have potential!

The Un-Bucket list

I feel so utterly lost. I think that’s unexpected for the girl who has analyzed her personality into 7 different types of people. But I am lost in every way imaginable. All I can say is that I have had and still will have so many changes in my life in the past 3 months that should have been spread out across the entire year. But I don’t mind really. I’ve always liked and favored change. I think Spencer Johnson, the writer of who moved my cheese, is an inspired and inspiring person who really highlighted change at its very basic levels.

I won’t talk about who moved my cheese. I will however say that for me, I’ve always had milestones, or experiences, or epiphanies, something that causes my life to turn upside down and shakes me to the core, changing my perspective for so many different things in life. I even remember in college, I had one of those with a rate of once per semester at some point which I think played a huge part in shaping me now (imagine having a different personality every 6 months!).

The Calling

I’ve always wondered what my purpose in life was. I mean we always feel like we’re meant for great things in life; the next napoleon or the next Virginia Woolf. The reality is we go to college filled with dreams of the future, graduate college having our big dreams filled with lots of hot air, get a bad job and keep thinking I’m gonna do this and that jump to the next best thing, or get a good job from the start. And then, you either feel you have made an achievement and that’s it, or you feel like you need to advance like a rocket.

Writer’s Block?

I’ve been saying that I’m suffering from writer’s block for something close to 8 years now. That’s because I cannot write a decent story anymore! And that is because I used to be a helluva writer back in the old days. The old days of course are when I was in prep school, which means when I was between the ages of 11 and 14 (I’m stretching it a bit). That just sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? I mean how can I say I was a better writer when I was a child than now when I am a full blow adult! Doesn’t make any sense whatsoever… except it does in a very silly kind of way.

All by myselves!

Every couple of years I ask myself, who am I? it’s always an interesting question because I never get the same answer twice. I guess this is life where change is the only constant. The funny thing is I’m not really sure there is an answer. The last time I asked myself this question was a few months ago. It was a very confusing time for me, lots of things going on in my life; it happens! What I got was quite surprising but I guess it was the only time I got a really meaningful answer even though it only confused me more. What was surprising was the number of answers I got, all from myself. But the catch is that myself could only be defined as myselves!