confused arab chick

I was taking a smoke break from studying on the 8th floor of the Hall building... When I saw him sitting down and smoking a cigarette. Marlboros. Fresh from the Middle East*. Yummy.

He's not just an activist. He is the activist. He organised the now infamous Natanyahu riots at Concordia in 2002. He has petitioned and advocated for Palestinian rights at Concordia and all over Canada till his face turned blue. He is articulate, knowledgeable and passionate. People love him, and people hate him.

I know "his people" totally disagree with the approach I have taken to educating others about the plight of Palestinians. Their argument is valid- but so is mine. Somebody's gotta do it.

So, I plopped down next to him on the little perch hanging out of the Hall building on Maisonneuve. I introduced myself, and invited him to participate in our next dialogue group meeting. He was friendly.. But no luck.

It was worth a try.



*No, you cannot legally buy Marlboros in Canadia.

Really tired and desperately need sleep; but I couldn't resist posting this first.

"A Muslim couple in India have been told by local Islamic leaders that they must separate after the husband "divorced" his wife in his sleep.

...Sohela Ansari had told friends that her husband Aftab had uttered the word "talaq", or divorce, three times in his sleep.
The religious leaders ruled that if the couple wanted to remarry they would have to wait at least 100 days. Sohela would also have to marry another man, spend at least a night with him and be divorced by him."


Hehehe :)
People are funny.
This shit cracks me up.

Good Night.

5:15 am: BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

snooze

5:24 am: BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

I tumbled out of bed. The sun wasn't even awake yet- but I had to be. I only went to bed at 3 am. Pure cruel. No one is awake this early.

I had to be in court somewhere in Bumfuck Ontario at 9:30 am.

So three hours after falling out of my house.. I arrived at the Court House. If you can call it that.

I don't mean to be a "city girl"or anything- but this place was just a trailer park! Everything is a block away from Tim Hortons (which, coincidentally, is the nicest building in town). I mean, I'll bet anything the entire population is related or something.

Small towns... are not for people like me.

So, anyway- court. I stood in line for an hour, listened to everybody else while I waited my turn, asked to speak to the crown- waited another hour, finally struck a deal with her (crown, prosecution, evil- call it what you will).

Smiled at the judge, pleaded guilty- got my fine.. went to Wendy's (a must on long trips).. and finally got back on my way to civilization!

I really really really love my city. I think the suburbs are "the country".

They would have to drag me kicking and screaming to leave downtown Montreal. I'm not kidding.




*Thank you G and R for waking up at Dawn to accompany me on our little adventure to Hicktown Bumfuck Nowhere.

...is so pretty.


Went up to the "big" lookout on Friday night. I can see my house from there :)

I love this city.

"I'm sick to the stomach"

I'm lost

"...you're up there..."

She's good

This is unhealthy

"she's so sweet, why did you let me think badly of her?"

She knows

"...we were intimate..."

You're happy

Always

Love

"I'm so lucky to have you..."






- don't think about it, go smoke a cigarette, and go to sleep

As part of Concordia's Peace and Conflict Resolution Series- The "Israeli and Palestinian Historical Narratives: A Symposium" has been an event in the works for a while. I've been kind of- but not really- involved in the organization.

I went to see Shattered Dreams tonight.

Heavy Stuff.

It was really sad for me to watch how close "we" got to peace. The collapse of the peace process is definitely one of the biggest losses to the safety of so many people in modern history.

The situation is so tense, and both sides feel like they have so much to lose and so little to gain that we are at standstill, yet again.

As a Palestinian, I feel connected to that controversial piece of land in a way I cannot explain. I want peace for the Palestinian people in Gaza, the West Bank and refugee camps all around the Middle East. 58 years later, it is time for them to get on with their lives. I want peace of mind for young Israelis. They were not around in 1948. This situation is no more their fault than it is the Palestinians.

I need Palestine to exist. In whatever form that ends up being- regardless, my "hometowns" are gone. I want to visit a vibrant Palestinian society- one that sees hope in it's future. I want to contribute to the building of a Palestinian nation in anyway that I can. I want Palestinians to stop fighting.

I'm sick of having 4 million Palestinian refugees strewn across the Planet without a place to call home. I'm sick of sympathy for my people or lack thereof. I'm sick of arguing with political adversaries. I'm tired of seeing images of a broken land and a broken people on TV.

How many more dead are we going to have before we FINALLY sign some papers and stop this bloodbath that has become of one of the most historically important countries on this planet?

The homeland is crying.

So apparently, the only part of my last post that got published was the title. Oops!

Right, so I can't remember everything- but basically, we brought this Palestinian-American comedian to Montreal for a show last week. She was fantastic. She put on a good show and there were lots of laughs.

*******************

Where have I been? Busy- although I can't quite remember what it is that I have been doing. I know there was an "Arab World" Exhibition on Friday (which went very well and was lots of fun, thank you)- and I went to see a very funny play on Saturday.

School is going to get insanely hectic again soon, and I'm not looking forward to it.

I'll write something more interesting soon,

OUT

So..Arab Party, eh?
What's an "Arab Party"?

You put lots of Arabs in one place, give them a big bar with lots of bartenders and alcohol galore... add loud Arabic music- and you got yourself one hell of a PARTAY!

People were dancing like crazy, and going nutty over the likes of Ruby and Nancy. Us Arabs, we like to have a good time. It usually involves climbing onto and dancing on the bar, belly dancing with strangers who have friendly faces, and lots of drinking. The party was rocking.

Until management came along. Fuckers shut us down!!

The management of the W Hotel are a bunch of idiots- that's all I'm gonna say.

So, after a long day filled with meetings and classes, I decided to come home and hide out.
I went grocery shopping (first big trip this semester!) and came home with all my veggies fully intending on spending a quiet evening at home with lots of yummy food, a few good friends and Will and Grace.

I decided I wanted that veggie Indian dish with all the cauliflower and potatoes (anyone know what I'm talking about) and went about chopping and boiling..

...I like my Indian food spicy so i chopped up what seemed like a fair amount of Chillis and got to work.

A wonderful friend of mine, lets call her Elle, promised to make me some home made chicken soup since I've been resisting a cold for several days now.

About an hour later, I had my food simmering and everything smelt delicious! So, I got really excited that I had pulled this off without a recipe of any sort, and decided to try it out.

HOT STUFF

Elle: How many fucking chilis did you fucking put in that fucking stuff?!
Me: I dunno, a bunch. How was I supposed to know it would end up turning out like this?
Elle: A BUNCH?! What are you, nuts?

Yum :)

I've been studying all day for a midterm. It's a very easy class- which, of course means that I haven't looked at it in weeks. I've been busy.

Wish me luck!

How do images come about?

During one of a presentation in one of my classes, we were shown a feature on the euro news website that displays images of current events without a caption. The idea is that the viewer creates their own perception of the incident they are seeing. I disagree.

The class was impressed by the ‘impartiality’ of the idea and clearly failed to realize that these pictures were selected by somebody who consciously or unconsciously chose a particular image over another. This applies to images in newspapers and magazines or footage on the news. There are several instinctive decisions that are taken before an image of a particular event reaches the reader/viewer.

The unconscious decisions a photographer or camera person takes when shooting a moment in time are numerous and few people realize how much consideration goes into framing, angles, colors and all the other choices the person behind the camera is faced with.

As an amateur photographer, I have learnt a lot about how different the world from behind the lens and how snap judgments can drastically affect the impact of an image. Photography students spend many hours learning about framing, cropping and how to use these techniques to convey subliminal messages in their images. Of course, seasoned photographers have perfected their craft and can snap and edit images in a manner that can easily distort the reality they are capturing to suit their requisites.
Digital technology has had a deep impact digital technology has had on the manipulation of images. However, he fails to mention that darkroom technique has always been highly sophisticated and professional photographers have always been able to manipulate their images.

In fact, one of my photography instructors once told us that photo editing software like Photoshop is now required by law to imprint a digital file with the changes that have been made to an image. She found this very amusing since there was little she could alter in Photoshop that she could not achieve in the darkroom. Nevertheless, it is of course much easier and faster to modify images today that it has been in the past, in large part thanks to digital technologies.

How do images come about?

This weekend has been an interesting mix of lots of work and not enough done.

I spent a fair amount of time panicking about catching up on all the lost work courtesy of stolen laptop, and a big block of time studying for MORE upcoming midterms.

But I also chilled out and got a breather from my usual weekly routine- which was nice. There are few evenings I consider to be more fun than dinner, good conversation with cool peeps and a bottle of red.

*******

I'm now in the library, supposedly still working on an assignment due on Thursday (that would be last Thursday, March 2nd), but my brain is scrambled and no longer functioning. It doesn't care about organizational behavior, or individual behavior-or any form of behavior that commits me to endless hours in the library.

But somebody's gotta do it.
I guess I better get back to work.

1. People are stupid
2. Shit happens
3. Life goes on
4. Perception is Reality
5. Academia is for those with patience
6. To have faith
7. Everything is subjective
8. Ignorance is bliss
9. Irony is everywhere
10.Earth is big. And so, so small.
11.I love my friends anyway
12.Little pieces of paper can be very important
13.Don't bother
14.Parents are people too
15.Cold logic is cruel
16.The value of down time
17.Sleep is sacred
18.Timing is critical
19.Smiling fixes things
20.I'm sorry

I might not have mentioned this, but I purchased a brand spanking new laptop while in Toronto last week.

********************

I've had a really bad week. I've been overworked and sleep deprived. I had period cramps and was practically limping around evrywhere carrying my books and laptop.

I'd just had a quick lunch and was heading for class.

Her: You want me to take your laptop, I'm meeting you right after class anyway.
Me: Ok

********************

I come down to meet her and get back to work.
She's not there, but another friend of ours is.

Me: Where is she?
Him: I don't know, she'll be back in a second.

********************

She comes back with a big burly security guard.

Her: Your laptop was stolen, I'm so sorry. I'll buy you a new one, right now. I swear!
Me: Are you serious?

********************