A Measure of Love

I once heard that in all relationships, there always has to be someone who loves the other person more.
I sincerely hope that it's not me...



Which one do YOU think you are in your relationships?

Is it even possible to love each other the same "amount"...?
There's always the gardener and the flower in relationships... Have I always been a gardener? Being a flower sure feels nice, though.

I've tried being in a relationship within that construct that the active work of the relationship ebbs and flows between the two individuals. I don't know if two people can be at the exact same level at all times. One being the giver and the other the receiver; it should flow. It's the best kind to be honest, and makes the two individuals extremely happy.

I can honestly say, though, that I haven't really experienced being the "flower" so to speak, just probably the "gardener", or the flowing relationship.
I hope I'm wrong about this though...

Tagged by Dots

A - Available or Single
Neither

B - Best friend
Dots and a few others

C - Cake or Pie
Cake

E - Essential Item
Phone and laptop

F - Favorite color
Orange-red

G - Gummi bears or worms
Who would choose worms?? Gummi bears!

H - Hometown
Dubai

I - Indulgence
Chips + 7up + TV Show

J - January or February
January

K - Kids
Love them! Can't wait to have my own

L - Life
Test of patience

M - Marriage
Determined by fate, and is a part of life

N - Number of Siblings
6 (including me)

O - Oranges or Apples
Apples!

P - Phobias
Don't think so... maybe normal fear of heights

Q - Favorite Quote
No favorite

R - Reason to Smile
Seeing my actions have a very successful effect on others

S - Season
Winter

T - Tag three other people
Three? Dots tagged MD already so I guess:
I Have A Dream
Insomniac
(I'm not particularly popular in the blogosphere :p )

U - Unknown Fact About Me
I tend to daydream and smile a lot by myself. Once a professor wrote this as a comment to a paper of mine:
"Keep up the good work; and why do you always seem to be laughing at me—or something else—when nobody else is? I don’t mind, but it is interesting."

V*W - Worst Habit
Laziness

X*Y - Your Favorite Food
Watermelons, noodles, sandwiches, some pasta, apples...

Z - Zodiac
Gemini

Political Correctness

Politically correct people irriate and frustrate me, especially when I don't realize that they were able to trick me with their political correctness, or "PC".

Examples:

Q: "Do you believe me?"
A: "It doesn't matter what I think as the circumstances force me to take such an action against you."

Q: "Are you ok?"
A: "Well I don't think of things as being ok or not anymore I just believe in adapting to the reality of the situation and living with it and moving on."

Q: "Will you stop animal testing?"
A: "We will definitely work on changing policies to satisfy public needs."

Q: "Where were you?"
A: "I was -insert mundane, boring details on everyday routine things trying to make it sound like your day is filled while it really wasn't-."

PC person: "He's an economically challenged man who is currently between jobs cause he has an attention deficit."
Real person: "He's unemployed and poor cause of his bad behavior."

PC person: "She just has an alternative body image."
Real person: "She's fat."

PC person: "Don't blame him, he's just emotionally different."
Real person: "He's crazy."

PC person: "It's in the early stages of finalisation."
Real person: "I didn't finish it yet."

---

I was pretty close to studying politics. Ironic.

Keep it simple and straight people!

Don't You Hate It...

When almost every past significant event in your life haunts you? All the pain inflicted on you by others - loved ones and not so loved ones - comes back in one night...

Becoming an Insomniac!

I don't know what got into me. I literally cannot sleep for over 5 hours lately, and I have no good reason to explain it! Nothing's on my mind and I'm fine! Why can't I sleep?!

Anyway, it's 6:10 AM now and my first class starts at 10. I'll have to think of something to do until then.

I have environmental science at 10, a requirement I didn't take when I first started. I always hated biology, so I don't know how well I'll be able to cope. I did choose this teacher cause I took a class with him before, and know how strict he is with handing work on time. He grinds his students well, which I like. It really prepares one for the final.

I don't like my subjects this semester. Intro to IT and Computing seems boring, maybe except the web design part. Business Communication seems nice, I like writing and presenting. So maybe it's not so bad.

I should seriously take a pill for tommorrow night; this isn't healthy!
My eyes look so red

Peekvid

Don't you hate having to wait for four to six hours for your PC to download a movie or tv show that you really want to watch? P2P programs, like Limewire, Bittorrent and Azureus usually take a few hours before the entire file is downloaded onto your system.

I have a solution for you. If, like me, you're tired of waiting, Peekvid is the solution for you.
You don't have to wait. Click on the movie you want to watch and it will show it to you on a full screen. It usually comes in parts, but it's okay. If you have a DSL connection, then it's perfect for you.

I love it.

(watch Little Mosque on the Prairie in TV shows. It provides an interesting perspective of Muslims living in the West.)

Poncho

I'm currently reading a book, Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter, C.P.A. In it, Sharon talks about her little boy.
He asks her the classic question that all kids ask parents, "Why do we need to go to school?"
So she answers with the classical response saying that good grades ensure a successful future, to which he replies by saying that good grades don't ensure a good future as getting a job just means working really hard to earn money while those who have a lot of money didn't even get a good education to start with, like Bill Gates who dropped out of university and Micheal Jordan who pursued a career in basketball.
While it's true that most people aren't as lucky to get high incomes with no educational background, let's face it, to us education equals security. Living on the edge is quite risky. However, truth be told, a sound education does not guarantee big money. It guarantees being fed and clothed, but does not guarantee success.

So what is it that makes one successful?

Well, according to the authors of the book, a mixture of investing plus financing skills is the solution. Apparently, Sharon met Robert at a workshop he was teaching where he was trying to teach people these skills through a game. The game had basic balance sheets and income statements which many couldn't understand. There was a business owner and a banker who were struggling with these basic financial statements. What does that tell you about financial knowledge?

The book's title, Rich Dad Poor Dad, came from Robert's childhood, as he was raised by two fathers who he loved very much. One was rich the other poor.
Here are a few excerpts from the book:

one dad would say, "The love of money is the root of all evil." The other, "The lack of money is the root of all evil."

[...]

One of the reasons the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class struggles in debt is because the subject of money is taught at home, not in school. Most of us learn about money from our parents. So what can a poor parent tell their child about money? They simply say, "Stay in school and study hard." The child may graduate with excellent grades but with a poor person's financial programming and mind-set. It was learned while the child was young.

[...]

One dad had a habit of saying, "I can't afford it." The other dad forbade those words to be used. He insisted I say, "How can I afford it?" One is a statement, and the other is a question. One lets you off the hook, and the other forces you to think. My soon-to-be rich dad would explain that by automatically saying the words "I can't afford it," your brain stops working. By asking the question, "How can I afford it?" your brain is put to work. He did not mean buy everything you want. He was fanatical about exercising your mind, the most powerful computer in the world. "My brain gets stronger everyday because I exercise it. The stronger it gets, the more money I can make." He believed that automatically saying "I can't afford it" was a sign of mental laziness.

[...]

My two dads had opposing attitudes in thought. One dad thought that the rich should pay more in taxes to take care of those less fortunate. The other said, "Taxes punish those who produce and reward those who don't produce."

One dad recommended, "Study hard so you can find a good company to work for." The other recommended, "Study hard so you can find a good company to buy."

One dad said, "The reason I'm not rich is because I have you kids." The other said, "The reason I must be rich is because I have you kids."

One encouraged talking about money and business at the dinner table. The other forbade the subject of money to be discussed over a meal.

One said, "When it comes to money, play it safe, don't take risks." The other said, "Learn to manage risk."

One believed, "Our home is our largest investment and our greatest asset." The other believed, "My house is a liability, and if your house is your largest investment, you're in trouble."

Both dads paid their bills on time, yet one paid his bills first while the other paid his bills last.

One dad believed in a company or the government taking care of you and your needs [...] The other believed in total financial self-reliance. He spoke out against the "entitlement" mentality and how it was creating weak and financially needy people. He was emphatic about being financially competent.

One dad struggled to save a few dollars. The other simply created investments.

One dad taught me how to write an impressive resume so I could find a good job. The other taught me how to write strong business and financial plans so I could create jobs.

My poor dad would also say, "I'm not interested in money" or "Money doesn't matter." My rich dad said, "Money is power."

[my rich dad] encouraged me to study to be rich, to understand how money works and to learn how to have it work for me. "I don't work for money!" were words he would repeat over and over, "Money works for me!"

It's interesting how schools now teach us things that we don't really use in real life. Actual life skills depend on one's luck.

Another good book, How to Sell Anything to Anybody, by Joe Girard, was an enjoyable read. He's a salesman, the guy who stands in the store waiting for customers to come in.
Except that he doesn't wait. He has unique techniques. One of them is keeping track of the customers he sells to using a system. He sells cars, so what he basically does is he calls you up maybe three years after he sells it to you, asking you if you're interested in buying a new one. He also sends personalized birthday cards like the ones from Hallmark instead of the stuffy corporate ones. He simply signs it, "Joe Girard, Chevrolet Motors." It might cost that much more, but let's be honest here, wouldn't you remember the guy who sent you the sweet card? I know I would.
He keeps balloons, candy and cigars in his desk drawer so that if a potential customer walks in with his kids, he knows what to give them to entertain them. He's a delight to talk to and makes excellent small talk. One of the things he does is he fills in the order form as the customer is speaking so that they don't have to do that after the customer says he wants the car, he can simply sign the form and take the car home with him.
Another technique is selling right there, right then. Customers hate waiting, so if someone says they want a navy blue car he won't say it'll arrive next month, as that's too long and the customer would've looked at another dealer by then. So he tells the customer that he has the car in stock, maybe it's a powder blue one. He takes him down to where they keep their inventory, pretending to curse his incompetent staff for this mistake. He then starts to compliment the car and tries to flatter the customer. Chances are, he'll leave with it.

Yesterday, I was out shopping with a friend. We saw this beautiful Mexican poncho that I knew would look great on her. She seemed hesitant as she never bought a poncho before and wasn't very open to buying something that was completely new to her.
As we started to walk away, I remembered reading Joe Girard saying that one of the techniques he used was to put the customer inside the car. Making a customer try something makes them feel obligated to it. So whatever it is you're selling, clothes or cosmetics or electronics, make sure you make the customer try it. There's a higher chance they'll buy it.
I turned back and told her, "Will you look at that?! It's screaming, 'Please try me on!' Go ahead just try it on you don't have to buy it. Let's see how it looks like on you."

She bought it.

Family Pride

I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I'm old, and you said, I don't think you're old. And you put your hand in my hand and you said, You aren't very old, as if that settled it. I told you you might have a very different life from mine, and from the life you've had with me, and that would be a wonderful thing, there are many ways to live a good life. And you said, Mama already told me that. And then you said, Don't laugh! because you thought I was laughing at you. You reached up and put your fingers on my lips and gave me that look I never in my life saw on any other face besides your mother's. It's a kind of furious pride, very passionate and stern. I'm always a little surprised to find my eyebrows unsinged after I've suffered one of those looks. I will miss them.
- Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Pride is a horrible thing, especially when one feels it towards one's family. Breaking barriers is difficult; how often do you hear children tell their parents they love them after the age of 13? Why is it so difficult? Don't we all, as children, yearn for a show of affection from and towards our parents?

Imagine a hypothetical situation: The child is used to viewing parents as the people who the child needs to get permission from for certain things, not as the people who care for the child. The child grows up, and the parents decide to change. What's the point now? The child is a young adult; adults can take care of themselves. When a person grows up, after a childhood of neutrality, the person finds it difficult to cope. The poisonous adjective, pride, comes in the way.

Dealing with pride is difficult. Not dealing with it is disasturous. We tend to form high opinions about ourselves... Why feel higher than the people who clothed, bathed, fed and raised you? We're fragile, and without them, God knows what would've happened to us. Showing gratitude towards parents is difficult for many, but with the strength of willpower, anything is possible.

New Blog

Blog moved to: Utopia

I like the new blogger!

The Meeting

This story is definitely more believable than the original CIA crap.

Would You Like a side of Fatwa's With that Burger?

Buy your own fatwa in India for as little as $22.

Read all about the story here...
I can think of many fatwa's that I'd love to buy ;)

Memories

Memories do last forever, but sometimes nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

Unblocked!

Finally!!! Moaning does pay off! Either that, or Etisalat is starting to get a little jealous of DU!

The news that 7DAYS readers have been waiting for: Etisalat have finally
decided to unblock a number of hugely popular web sites that, over the last few months have not been accessible to the public.
[...]
the public is once again free to enjoy sites such as Myspace.com, Youtube.com, Piczo.com, Metacafe.com and Hi5.com, among many others.

- 7Days Newspaper

This is great news! I'll start abusing YouTube!

Quandry of the Lonely Blogger

I read an interesting post that I want to share:

“Let’s say you write this awesome entry - you research, you dissect your sources, you analyze, and you write a most stellar entry that you feel really shows your abilities as a writer. You check your email obsessively for the next couple of days waiting, waiting for the comments that are bound to flood your inbox. Only nothing comes, just some junk mail from the newsletter you signed up in class last month and a service promising to boost your penis size.

The next day you write an entry about how your dog Lucky just knocked over your aloe plant, spilling dirt and aloe babies all over your kitchen floor and about how you proceeded to slip on the dirt, thus whacking your head on the edge of the kitchen table and how you now have a lump the size of Nova Scotia on the back of your head and about how you think you are going to drop out of college to become a squirrel herder because you are pretty sure your fall in the kitchen was a “sign.” And, lo and behold, twenty people leave you a comment in the next five minutes.

What the heck?”

Source

Why be normal...

...when you can be happy?

Why care what other people think? What society forces upon you? What you should believe in opposition to what you'd like to believe?

Why don't you do what you want to do just because it's good for you?

Forget people, think of yourself!

3D Posters

XYZ Imaging Inc., the world's first holographic printing bureau, have been developing a new kind of holographic technology that allows for full 3D motion pictures.

Take a look at these examples:
Terminator II
A soccer player
Final Fantasy

For those of you who are interested, you can order a 3D custom-made poster. It's not cheap; prices vary from around $350 to $3300 depending on the size.

I don't think it'll be long before movie theaters adopt the idea and use such posters to advertise movies, especially within the sci-fi/action genres.

Subliminal Messaging

Click on this link... scary!

A Few Bits and Pieces

I came back from Omrah yesterday. It was a great journey. I'll hopefully write about it sometime soon.

For the meantime, I had the opportunity to surf the internet today, and did a little research. I thought that my findings would interest others, and that's why I'm sharing them:

Arablish

A funny description on the Arabic-English chat language in Wikipedia. I personally don't mind reading such text, and I do use it for smsing and instant messaging, but I prefer to blog in a formal style. I feel that long texts need to be written in a proper format in order for the writer's thoughts to be digested in the best possible way by the reader. I also prefer to read proper English or proper Arabic rather than a mix of both; I feel that it gives a better understanding of the text for the reader. Too much use of color, too many "lol's", "ROFL's", etc., ugly fonts that are supposed to be funky, BLOCK letters and too much use of smileys can really turn me off wanting to read whatever is written no matter how rich the content may be. Text appearance is important to me.

Improving Googling

Why can I sense Dots smiling? haha
Do you ever click on what appears to be a promising site from google to get an error "File not found" message? Do you ever google and not get what you're looking for? Here are a few cool sites that are pretty good at improving your googling abilities:

10 tips to improve your googling
Google Genealogy Style
Google Help: Cheat Sheet

One of the strange things about google is that it has powerful abilities that very few people know about. I personally feel that what largely contributes to that fact is its extremely simple search page which just has a search box present; adding a large sized link under the query box to the Cheat Sheet page would really help many people. I'm not suggesting an ugly Yahoo! page filled with all sorts of stuff, just a link under the query box would do; I love the simple Google style.

Scientology

Why do people regard Tom Cruise as crazy? What does Scientology have to do with any of this? What is Scientology?

Scientology became quite famous after Tom Cruise's adaptation of the faith, and many people started to read up on the subject. Many converted to the faith. Most people say that it's a complete fraud while others strongly believe in it.

Read the following excerpts taken from 7days article "The truth about Scientology":

...there’s Scientology’s booklet, ‘The Way to Happiness’, which gives guidelines to better living such as ‘be competent’ and ‘don’t do anything illegal’. Whereas the bible makes do with ten commandments, the book runs to 21. But the leaflet, according to Miscavige, can work miracles. After being given a copy, no inmates in an Israeli prison were ever readmitted. A US cop handed out copies to known troublemakers and crime dropped 38 per cent.

(...)

Using a little science of my own, it’s time to turn to Google. Scientology was
founded by pulp fiction writer L Ron Hubbard.Hubbard is either a great man
who crossed the globe in search of answers, or a complete fraud, depending on
who you believe. His son, L Ron Hubbard Jr, claimed on TV in 1983 that “99 per
cent of what my father ever wrote or said about himself is totally untrue.” What
is true is that Reader’s Digest quoted Hubbard as saying “writing for a penny a
word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best
way would be to start his own religion.”
Several other people say Hubbard made similar statements to them. Following Scientology is certainly not cheap. To progress to the top level, study fees have been estimated at as much as $500,000. While it’s billed as a religious non-profit organisation, the Washington Post reported in 1994 that many US lawmakers considered it an unscrupulous commercial organisation. The German government considers it a commercial business.
But what is it? Scientology was originally a self-help philosophy, but Hubbard then began to add religious aspects. It aims to help humans achieve awareness of their spiritual existance, and ultimately regain ‘total freedom’. It’s made up of a series of levels – Hubbard believed rehabilitation takes place on a step by step basis. Believers follow the ‘Bridge to Total Freedom’, with each step allowing a little more freedom, and a little more knowledge about Scientology.
The basic beliefs are that people have an immortal soul, which will be reincarnated after the body dies, and it’s possible to retain emotional problems from previous lives. The other main belief is that psychiatry and psychology are abusive, which we’ll come to in a moment. The main practice of Scientology is known as auditing. Each new believer sits down with a trained ‘auditor’ and is asked questions about their life while a machine measures electrical impulses. The idea is that this helps a person unburden themselves of past mistakes and traumas. Scientologists have claimed benefits from auditing including improved IQ, enhanced memory and alleviated dyslexia and attention deficit problems.

Get this:

According to Hubbard, an alien called Xenu ruled a Galactic Confederacy 75 million years ago. Faced with overcrowding on the 76 planets he ruled, and a plot to overthrow him, the evil Xenu used psychiatrists to drug billions of people and load them onto transports, which explains Scientology’s dislike of psychology. The people were taken to earth, stacked around volcanoes and blown up with hydrogen bombs.
The souls of these people were then rounded up and forced to watch a kind of propaganda video for more than a month. Given that the souls are reincarnated, many psychological problems today apparently result from this misleading information. The media, including 7DAYS, is routinely accused by Scientologists of being inaccurate, or even malicious, when it comes to the group.

Sure, and I'm really a pink alien lizard who came from the planet Lafoofoo.

The article's last paragraph was funny:

But taking what’s been written about Tom Cruise’s bizarre behaviour as an example, it’s all pretty much true. Katie Holmes gave birth in silence because Hubbard believed that words heard at birth could later trigger trauma in an adult. Cruise’s rant against psychiatry on the ‘Today Show’ also stems from Hubbard’s beliefs. Far from changing my mind, an afternoon researching Scientology has made me think it’s weirder than ever. Or is that Xenu’s brainwashing talking?

Apparently, Scientology's church claims that it is a non-profit organization. However, it's quite clear that they're rich. I researched more on Scientology after reading 7days' article. I read about one man whose best friend became a scientologist. After they took a lot of money from him, he decided to stop as he had doubts on the religion. They called at his office, got him fired. Spurred problems between him and his wife, who filed for divorce and many other things. They basically ruined his life. After it all, he just pulled the trigger and killed himself, the pressure was just too much for him to handle.

Check this link for more about Scientology from scientologists. Watch this interesting video on Scientology. As it turns out, Scientology has its own bible as well. See this page to learn about Scientology's bible. Most reviewers claim that Scientology basically takes common sense and presents it in what appears to be a scientific style. I want to purchase the book, it looks like it'd make an interesting read.

Muslim Converts

Watching how Muslim converts act towards Islam makes people like me, who were born into Islam, feel ashamed. Why don't we, who were born into the right religion, practice it well? There's a large difference between being a Muslim and a practicing Muslim. In one of the videos which I'll link to in a moment, one of the Muslim converts says that the Muslims that he was surrounded by weren't practicing ones and that they were really bad. They were shady characters; one of them got arrested and the another one of them is waiting for trail. He says that there was a turning point in his life which led him to look for a faith to follow, for he followed none. He never even thought of Islam for the characters that used to surround him. He looked into all sorts of faiths but as soon as he found an error, he left it. He felt that if it were the true faith and if it came from God, then it wouldn't contain any error; how can the Almighty err? One day, he went to listen to a mosque with his purple-haired girlfriend. He used to cause many problems there, until one day, he sat and listened to one of the Islamic lectures. He was bewildered by the faith, and started to ask many questions. After that session, he told his girlfriend that they were over for he can't sin if he wanted to be a practicing Muslim. Can you believe it? After one session only, subhan-Allah.
Another video that I'll share in a moment is about the youngest Muslim converts in the world. Two British sisters aged 9 and 12 convert to Islam. Their mom was shocked, but since she believed in freedom of choice she didn't stop them; she did, however, make it difficult for them. At first didn't allow them to practice Islam in their house or pray for she thought it was too much, she ordered them to do it in the mosque only. She forbade them to go to mosque at one point, until after speaking to the Imam who convinced her to let them go ahead. Unlike other children, the girls spend their evenings reading books and memorizing Quran as well as praying in their rooms.

Isn't it outstanding to see how Muslim converts act towards Islam compared to those born into the faith? I guess that they probably work harder due to the newness of the faith.

Here's the link to Ali's Video Blog, episode 10, where he shares his story on how he converted to Islam. Episodes 3 and 4 are interesting. Watch the whole season, I loved it.
Here's the link to the young British Girls' journey through Islam.
This video, copying Ali's style, is an interesting watch. This video is an interesting watch as well.





Enjoy! =)

I Miss You...

...and you, you and you

Have you ever been surrounded with people and felt like you couldn't be any more lonely?

I've been emotional over the last few days. I'm better during the daytime, I guess it's cause I'm distracted. At night, though, I find it difficult to sleep, even when I'm feeling so tired. Dots once told me it's called, "Too tired to sleep". I keep rolling around, not being able to close my eyes for more than a few minutes before feeling my heart ache.
It might be a normal feeling that accompanies almost everyone who travels and makes one feel that way close to coming back home; or I just might be too emotional.

Regardless, the time spent in Saudi Arabia was good. Al Madinah had a really comforting feeling, I miss it. I'm blogging from Makkah right now. The Saudi government needs a lot of improving. Dots asked me to blog about the things I would change if I was able to; I probably will when I'm back.
For the meantime, I'll just type as I think...
Praying with the Kaa'ba in your sight, knowing that God is right there, watching you pray for Him, being in front of His house, in His devine presence... There's just so much depth in those soulful moments. It's beautiful.. I can't describe the feeling you get. It's heavenly, holy, almighty, blissful, celestial, sacred, spiritual... Above all, it's unearthly.

Why take drugs when you can get a high from performing a religious deed?
No matter where you are on earth, you're able to get the feeling. Close your eyes, concentrate, acknowledge His presence, know that your soul travels up to Him when you pray...
I hope that I can achieve that high when I'm back...


Keep praying =)

Seraph

Many people wonder what Seraph means, and why I'm using this name.

Seraph is another word for "angel". A Seraph is one of the highest angels, if not the highest.

A few days back, I was bored out of my mind, and started googling "Seraph" when I stumbled upon the meaning in Wikipedia. To my shock, and to my amusement as well, I found a very interesting meaning...

A seraph (Hebrew שׂרף, plural שׂרפים Seraphim) is one of a class of celestial beings mentioned once in the Old Testament (Tanakh), in Isaiah. Later Jewish imagery perceived them as having human form, and in that way they passed into the ranks of Christian angels.

Source

So basically, a Seraph is the Jewish equivelant of a Christian angel. How nice...

Did that bit of information shock you? It sure surprised me.

---

Watch this interesting video which compares the U.S coverage of the Middle East Crisis with the Middle Eastern coverage and how the U.S coverage reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It also exposes how the U.S's foreign policy interests of American political elites work in combination with Israeli Public Relations.