this is what i look like now, having shaved recently and given myself a haircut today.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
PLANET OF THE APES
I realized something today, while watching Beneath the Planet of the Apes. One, I wanted to see the original and the new version, the first I have seen, the second I have not. Two, Planet of the Apes was the first movie/story which I saw in which I realized that not all stories have a happy ending. The original story sticks in my mind as the one which told me this. From what I remember the story ends with man blowing a nuclear bomb to stop the apes. Yet I just watched the end of the Beneath the Planet of the Apes where the world was destroyed by a doomsday bomb. Same ending? Do I have my stories mixed up? I don’t know but they were probably made during the time of MAD so the stories could have similar endings.
The point is though, that I realized that not all stories have a happy ending. I grew up a little with this movie. Huh.
The point is though, that I realized that not all stories have a happy ending. I grew up a little with this movie. Huh.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
okay not sure where my wordpress blog stands at the moment. it worked for a second and i hit publish and then it froze and then i hit publish many more times (my solution being if it is not working then hit as many buttons as possible) so there might be 3 or 4 chapter 10s up. if it is a mess i will fix it up soon, assuming that those reading sunset look here too. anyway, until next time (as they say)...
Chapter 10 of Sunset-See most recent blog entry for details of this anomaly
“Jason? Jason? Are you there? Hello?”
Baybars sat up on Harvey’s couch frustrated by his inability to communicate with Jason. He had received nothing since Jason had painfully flooded his mind with his words, confusion, and fear. Aisha lay curled up in a ball under some blankets in an orange loveseat across the room.
“Harvey’s apartment is odd,” thought Baybars.
He lay back down to try and reach Jason again.
--
Hamee sat in the library again. This time it wasn’t a fun filled adventure but an urgent quest for information while avoiding detection by whatever malicious entities inhabited this particular section of nowhere. His nerves stood on full alert listening for any sign of books dropping heralding someone or something else’s presence. Their Dunkin Donuts session had turned into more than just a cup of coffee and a donut; it had become three cups of joe and a dozen donuts. Hamee went back to their conversation over the chocolate glaze before beginning his search.
“So Jason was with you?” Harvey asked Baybars.
“Yes, we ran together in the darkness, or ether as you call it.”
“Why were you two together?”
“I don’t know. It just happened that way, but since we went in together, it must mean we are somehow connected in what you say you need to protect.”
“Maybe,” Harvey mused.
“All the more reason for us to get to New York as soon as possible.”
“I know, but I want to do some more research first.” Harvey said taking a sip of hot black coffee.
“Where?” asked Baybars.
“He was in my dream,” interrupted a forgotten Aisha.
They turned to her.
“I call him leaf man. He looked like the park come to life with yellow eyes, bright yellow eyes,” she continued,” He said I needed to help him.”
“This is Jason you are talking about?” asked Baybars, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, you said you saw him. Don’t you remember?” she replied, “He said I needed to help him to help myself.
“It was so dark, and we were scared.” said Baybars, “The trip was all so confusing.”
“Well, I’ll see what I can do to help him,” Harvey said turning backed to Baybars.
She sulked into her coffee Boston Crème in hand.
“Little Aisha,” Hamee thought as he sat at a computer which he had, for lack of a better word, conjured in the library, “She is a burden, but she has nowhere else to go.”
Hamee activated the search function on his computer, a handy option that allowed him to avoid aimless wandering in the endless mazelike rows of the never ending library. He searched for ‘nature’ and got way to many entries. He added his name, ‘Hamee,’ and about half the entries disappeared.
“Ho, ho, ho. I am popular,” he said to himself.
Hamee added another word to the search: ‘vampire.’ Much fewer results but still not enough to make it possible in the short amount of time he guessed he had. Sighing he added ‘good vs. evil’ to the search box and blinked in surprise as five results glowed on the screen. After memorizing the call numbers, he set out, but twenty minutes later he returned empty handed and fuming.
“Why the hell are all of them missing?” he wondered aloud, “It figures. What I need and it isn’t there.”
He brought his plated hands down on his desk in a fit of violence and smashed through the top revealing a secret compartment that, if not for his violence, he never would have found. Covered in splinters lay a yellowed skinned cloth holding several old documents bound with a red rope. Pulling out the packet reverently, as it was his Kaatib’s last known item, he untied the rope and began to shuffle through the papers an article at a time trying to make sense of what he was reading. The first one he looked at talked about the Uprising and speculated that the champion of good may have actually been defeated and gone into hiding.
“Well, we know that much is true,” muttered Hamee.
Pawing through more of the documents, he found one discussing how the champion may have gone into hiding. Hamee realized this was what he really needed to know.
“Why didn’t Kaatib share this with me? This makes me to handle everything with Baybars differently.”
He stopped when he got to a section on dual/split identities realizing that--
His thoughts stopped as he watched the papers slide through his fingers. Harvey blinked his eyes to see a worried Babyars staring at him.
“Harvey. It is twelve noon. We need to go.”
“Right, yea,” he replied unsure how to tell Baybars what he had pieced together, but Baybars stode off gathering Aisha and some supplies before he could open his mouth again.
Harvey tried to ignore the last image of Kaatib that would not leave his brain or conscience alone. It was the lifeless shell, almost transparent in its disintegration on the floor of the library, of his shortest and most mysterious friend that he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life. Harvey was strong. His body had become even stronger in the recent past, yet he had not saved Kaatib. Guilt, strong enough to cause pain, welled up in his body gripping him in a torturous embrace starting in his stomach and moving up and down his body.
He screamed at himself, “I am a firefighter! I save people! There hadn’t even been a fire, and I let an old man die! Did my oath I took as a rescuer even mean anything anymore?”
Another feeling blossomed in his gut. Not new, but this time it had a target, or at least what he had seen of it, unlike the dancing inanimate and taunting wraith of a housefire. He felt hate and anger, and he resolved to protect those again under his charge no matter how much of a burden they were.
--
Algharoob sat pale and resting in the discolored recliner as Earl stitched her leg up.
“It was the machete,” it said.
One of the guys got you?” Earl asked with trepidation.
“No, no,” she hissed in pain, “You all can’t hurt me. I slipped in the blood—my blood—that I was taking.”
Earl said nothing and just continued to work.
“Damn these frail human bodies,” it said again through gritted teeth, “We are forced to feel everything you feel as if this affected our true soul.”
“Sorry boss,” was all that Earl dared to say.
“We need to go somewhere. When we get back, we will find him, or it will be your life.”
“Yes boss,” Earl gulped.
Algharoob fled from consciousness and awoke pain free in the library, “Ahh, that’s better.”
There was no sound in the library. It was quiet as death. The monster strode up the aisles finding an empty desk with a hole in it. Seeing the papers scattered on the floor, it smiled, seated itself gracefully, and began to reading seeking to know what its enemy knew and wondering who would have come to the library with the old man dead.
“Was is the black plated man?” it wondered.
It didn’t recognize the face. Looking down at the first paper its hands touched, it frowned.
“Finally, some information on what we have been missing, especially about the Uprising,” it thought to itself in an internal monologue, “Ever since our soul was destroyed in the physical long before the Uprising, we have roamed the ether searching for information but for naught. None of the others were willing to give out that information no matter how…persuasive we were.”
Algharoob contemplated that after a long and fruitless search of trying to figure out what happened in the early dark years after it had been banished, it eventually lost interest, turning instead to the only thing which it enjoyed. It had become dangerously fixated on collecting pain, even for a creature such as itself. Its mind drifted recalling all those years as its fingers blindly held the papers. Shaking its head, it moved past is inadequacies, brushed off the idea of insanity, and began reading again. A smile began creeping up its thin lips rising higher and higher although obscured by its niqab.
“We understand,” it said through an exhale, “Those two lights we saw in the clouds were really one and the same. Clever, clever, clever.” We will soon have our revenge, Epluribisunum, for what you took from us those eons ago: our physical being.”
Another thought strode violently into its head. It was one of pleasure, one of caution, and one not of its own devising. Algharoob immediately grew angry on many levels despite the approval it was receiving.
“We are no one’s lackey! But…” it continued finally realizing that it was long past being independent, “We can make this to our advantage. We use this knowledge…Yes, we use this knowledge and our actions to get a corporeal body back and once again roam the Earth where we are top predator. It will be a grand bargaining chip.”
After reading about the black plated man, Hamee, who protected what it is sought to destroy, it stretched cat-like. Algharoob returned to that feeling of caution. It hated its keeper, sent to keep it in check.
“How many times did it foil our plans on Earth since we settled here? We thought we would be all alone again, away from the prying eyes of Epluribisunum and others. Then he showed up! Our blood burns with the fire of hatred that can only be quenched by wrapping our fingers around its throat and wiping out its soul, perhaps even consuming it. For the longest time we have never dreamed this possible. In one bold move, we will destroy all that stands before us. It is time for the hunter to become the hunted.”
Sifting through the rest of the papers, it found one that seemed to have been untouched by whoever had previously been here. Its title was “How to Kill a Lower Order Demon: Signs and Practices (In my host body’s language: the vampire Sunset) by Kaatib Almustasharq.
Algharoob smirked after glancing at the paper thinking only, “Lower order demon no more.”
It then promptly ate the single short essay leaving no evidence of its existence.
Algharrob left the library and headed to the clouds, its borders going fluid. Energy flowed through it, and it immediately saw the two lights it had been startled to see earlier. It cupped one in its hand and absorbed.
“Ahh. New York.”
Kelly’s body woke up with a start and stared at Earl who was sipping coffee.
“Come, we go to New York.”
Earl wordlessly grabbed his Beretta 92FS semi-automatic pistol with accompanying holster and followed his master out the door, discarded bloody clothes, bits of bandages, and spent bullet casings the only remaining artifacts lingering under the ephemeral acrid smell of sweat and the harsh smell of dried blood in the now empty and discarded Fisher’s Club.
--
Baybars opened his eyes as they pulled onto Fulton Street with the Brooklyn Bridge in the distance. They were almost to the hospital. The dull evening sun wrapped around the buildings in a slightly polluted and chemicalized caress as the city’s nightlife emerged.
He had finally been able to talk to Jason, and both had spent the trip refining their abilities which seemed limited by distance. It was an odd feeling being able to communicate with his friend without actual speech. There was someone else in his head now, which he thought would feel strange, but, in actuality, it felt like some part of him had finally come home to roost. In linking with Jason, their thoughts intermingled. Never enough that they were in danger of losing themselves in each other; telepathy is only so liberating, but the thoughts danced together in a ballet of color, emotion, smell, and sometimes even specific events. The only time a really specific thought process occurred is when the two focused together on it. It seemed to Baybars, and by extension Jason, that it was a self-contained stream of thought, as if they were having conversations with themselves and to themselves. Baybars would have thought himself crazy with the voice in his head if he told himself about this change two weeks earlier sitting in a café in Egypt on Talaat Harb Street. He knew he would never be alone ever again.
Aisha lay asleep her arms wrapped protectively around herself in the backseat of Harvey’s weathered car.
Harvery turned and said to the occupants in the car and said in a steely voice, “We’re here. Let’s get him.”
Baybars sat up on Harvey’s couch frustrated by his inability to communicate with Jason. He had received nothing since Jason had painfully flooded his mind with his words, confusion, and fear. Aisha lay curled up in a ball under some blankets in an orange loveseat across the room.
“Harvey’s apartment is odd,” thought Baybars.
He lay back down to try and reach Jason again.
--
Hamee sat in the library again. This time it wasn’t a fun filled adventure but an urgent quest for information while avoiding detection by whatever malicious entities inhabited this particular section of nowhere. His nerves stood on full alert listening for any sign of books dropping heralding someone or something else’s presence. Their Dunkin Donuts session had turned into more than just a cup of coffee and a donut; it had become three cups of joe and a dozen donuts. Hamee went back to their conversation over the chocolate glaze before beginning his search.
“So Jason was with you?” Harvey asked Baybars.
“Yes, we ran together in the darkness, or ether as you call it.”
“Why were you two together?”
“I don’t know. It just happened that way, but since we went in together, it must mean we are somehow connected in what you say you need to protect.”
“Maybe,” Harvey mused.
“All the more reason for us to get to New York as soon as possible.”
“I know, but I want to do some more research first.” Harvey said taking a sip of hot black coffee.
“Where?” asked Baybars.
“He was in my dream,” interrupted a forgotten Aisha.
They turned to her.
“I call him leaf man. He looked like the park come to life with yellow eyes, bright yellow eyes,” she continued,” He said I needed to help him.”
“This is Jason you are talking about?” asked Baybars, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, you said you saw him. Don’t you remember?” she replied, “He said I needed to help him to help myself.
“It was so dark, and we were scared.” said Baybars, “The trip was all so confusing.”
“Well, I’ll see what I can do to help him,” Harvey said turning backed to Baybars.
She sulked into her coffee Boston Crème in hand.
“Little Aisha,” Hamee thought as he sat at a computer which he had, for lack of a better word, conjured in the library, “She is a burden, but she has nowhere else to go.”
Hamee activated the search function on his computer, a handy option that allowed him to avoid aimless wandering in the endless mazelike rows of the never ending library. He searched for ‘nature’ and got way to many entries. He added his name, ‘Hamee,’ and about half the entries disappeared.
“Ho, ho, ho. I am popular,” he said to himself.
Hamee added another word to the search: ‘vampire.’ Much fewer results but still not enough to make it possible in the short amount of time he guessed he had. Sighing he added ‘good vs. evil’ to the search box and blinked in surprise as five results glowed on the screen. After memorizing the call numbers, he set out, but twenty minutes later he returned empty handed and fuming.
“Why the hell are all of them missing?” he wondered aloud, “It figures. What I need and it isn’t there.”
He brought his plated hands down on his desk in a fit of violence and smashed through the top revealing a secret compartment that, if not for his violence, he never would have found. Covered in splinters lay a yellowed skinned cloth holding several old documents bound with a red rope. Pulling out the packet reverently, as it was his Kaatib’s last known item, he untied the rope and began to shuffle through the papers an article at a time trying to make sense of what he was reading. The first one he looked at talked about the Uprising and speculated that the champion of good may have actually been defeated and gone into hiding.
“Well, we know that much is true,” muttered Hamee.
Pawing through more of the documents, he found one discussing how the champion may have gone into hiding. Hamee realized this was what he really needed to know.
“Why didn’t Kaatib share this with me? This makes me to handle everything with Baybars differently.”
He stopped when he got to a section on dual/split identities realizing that--
His thoughts stopped as he watched the papers slide through his fingers. Harvey blinked his eyes to see a worried Babyars staring at him.
“Harvey. It is twelve noon. We need to go.”
“Right, yea,” he replied unsure how to tell Baybars what he had pieced together, but Baybars stode off gathering Aisha and some supplies before he could open his mouth again.
Harvey tried to ignore the last image of Kaatib that would not leave his brain or conscience alone. It was the lifeless shell, almost transparent in its disintegration on the floor of the library, of his shortest and most mysterious friend that he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life. Harvey was strong. His body had become even stronger in the recent past, yet he had not saved Kaatib. Guilt, strong enough to cause pain, welled up in his body gripping him in a torturous embrace starting in his stomach and moving up and down his body.
He screamed at himself, “I am a firefighter! I save people! There hadn’t even been a fire, and I let an old man die! Did my oath I took as a rescuer even mean anything anymore?”
Another feeling blossomed in his gut. Not new, but this time it had a target, or at least what he had seen of it, unlike the dancing inanimate and taunting wraith of a housefire. He felt hate and anger, and he resolved to protect those again under his charge no matter how much of a burden they were.
--
Algharoob sat pale and resting in the discolored recliner as Earl stitched her leg up.
“It was the machete,” it said.
One of the guys got you?” Earl asked with trepidation.
“No, no,” she hissed in pain, “You all can’t hurt me. I slipped in the blood—my blood—that I was taking.”
Earl said nothing and just continued to work.
“Damn these frail human bodies,” it said again through gritted teeth, “We are forced to feel everything you feel as if this affected our true soul.”
“Sorry boss,” was all that Earl dared to say.
“We need to go somewhere. When we get back, we will find him, or it will be your life.”
“Yes boss,” Earl gulped.
Algharoob fled from consciousness and awoke pain free in the library, “Ahh, that’s better.”
There was no sound in the library. It was quiet as death. The monster strode up the aisles finding an empty desk with a hole in it. Seeing the papers scattered on the floor, it smiled, seated itself gracefully, and began to reading seeking to know what its enemy knew and wondering who would have come to the library with the old man dead.
“Was is the black plated man?” it wondered.
It didn’t recognize the face. Looking down at the first paper its hands touched, it frowned.
“Finally, some information on what we have been missing, especially about the Uprising,” it thought to itself in an internal monologue, “Ever since our soul was destroyed in the physical long before the Uprising, we have roamed the ether searching for information but for naught. None of the others were willing to give out that information no matter how…persuasive we were.”
Algharoob contemplated that after a long and fruitless search of trying to figure out what happened in the early dark years after it had been banished, it eventually lost interest, turning instead to the only thing which it enjoyed. It had become dangerously fixated on collecting pain, even for a creature such as itself. Its mind drifted recalling all those years as its fingers blindly held the papers. Shaking its head, it moved past is inadequacies, brushed off the idea of insanity, and began reading again. A smile began creeping up its thin lips rising higher and higher although obscured by its niqab.
“We understand,” it said through an exhale, “Those two lights we saw in the clouds were really one and the same. Clever, clever, clever.” We will soon have our revenge, Epluribisunum, for what you took from us those eons ago: our physical being.”
Another thought strode violently into its head. It was one of pleasure, one of caution, and one not of its own devising. Algharoob immediately grew angry on many levels despite the approval it was receiving.
“We are no one’s lackey! But…” it continued finally realizing that it was long past being independent, “We can make this to our advantage. We use this knowledge…Yes, we use this knowledge and our actions to get a corporeal body back and once again roam the Earth where we are top predator. It will be a grand bargaining chip.”
After reading about the black plated man, Hamee, who protected what it is sought to destroy, it stretched cat-like. Algharoob returned to that feeling of caution. It hated its keeper, sent to keep it in check.
“How many times did it foil our plans on Earth since we settled here? We thought we would be all alone again, away from the prying eyes of Epluribisunum and others. Then he showed up! Our blood burns with the fire of hatred that can only be quenched by wrapping our fingers around its throat and wiping out its soul, perhaps even consuming it. For the longest time we have never dreamed this possible. In one bold move, we will destroy all that stands before us. It is time for the hunter to become the hunted.”
Sifting through the rest of the papers, it found one that seemed to have been untouched by whoever had previously been here. Its title was “How to Kill a Lower Order Demon: Signs and Practices (In my host body’s language: the vampire Sunset) by Kaatib Almustasharq.
Algharoob smirked after glancing at the paper thinking only, “Lower order demon no more.”
It then promptly ate the single short essay leaving no evidence of its existence.
Algharrob left the library and headed to the clouds, its borders going fluid. Energy flowed through it, and it immediately saw the two lights it had been startled to see earlier. It cupped one in its hand and absorbed.
“Ahh. New York.”
Kelly’s body woke up with a start and stared at Earl who was sipping coffee.
“Come, we go to New York.”
Earl wordlessly grabbed his Beretta 92FS semi-automatic pistol with accompanying holster and followed his master out the door, discarded bloody clothes, bits of bandages, and spent bullet casings the only remaining artifacts lingering under the ephemeral acrid smell of sweat and the harsh smell of dried blood in the now empty and discarded Fisher’s Club.
--
Baybars opened his eyes as they pulled onto Fulton Street with the Brooklyn Bridge in the distance. They were almost to the hospital. The dull evening sun wrapped around the buildings in a slightly polluted and chemicalized caress as the city’s nightlife emerged.
He had finally been able to talk to Jason, and both had spent the trip refining their abilities which seemed limited by distance. It was an odd feeling being able to communicate with his friend without actual speech. There was someone else in his head now, which he thought would feel strange, but, in actuality, it felt like some part of him had finally come home to roost. In linking with Jason, their thoughts intermingled. Never enough that they were in danger of losing themselves in each other; telepathy is only so liberating, but the thoughts danced together in a ballet of color, emotion, smell, and sometimes even specific events. The only time a really specific thought process occurred is when the two focused together on it. It seemed to Baybars, and by extension Jason, that it was a self-contained stream of thought, as if they were having conversations with themselves and to themselves. Baybars would have thought himself crazy with the voice in his head if he told himself about this change two weeks earlier sitting in a café in Egypt on Talaat Harb Street. He knew he would never be alone ever again.
Aisha lay asleep her arms wrapped protectively around herself in the backseat of Harvey’s weathered car.
Harvery turned and said to the occupants in the car and said in a steely voice, “We’re here. Let’s get him.”
felicitator
the word my computer English/Arabic dictionary gave me in the context of some Christian holidays in Syria (Christmas and Easter)
other words along with it were merry maker and celebrator
this one was my favorite, it sounds almost sinister as if the person is in a cabal to bring the end of the world…by candy canes.
:)
other words along with it were merry maker and celebrator
this one was my favorite, it sounds almost sinister as if the person is in a cabal to bring the end of the world…by candy canes.
:)
home is where the heart is
I’ve never felt that I have been able to settle down while in Egypt and really make the place I am staying feel like home (perhaps it is not meant to be done). I feel like I have lived these past five months in a state of transition (i.e. living out of suitcase). Certainly living in a hotel for four of those months didn’t help, but I had hoped moving to an apartment would’ve helped. It didn’t really, most likely because I am only staying here for two months. This is just another transition for me until I get back home.
I wish I had been able to get past that feeling, but I don’t think I will especially as my time left in Cairo dwindles. I don’t get that feeling though when I am in my dorm at UMBC. I don’t think I suffer from this despite it being a similar time, four months, because I am close to home. I usually feel this way during the month transition between fall and spring semesters but not during the summer. Perhaps I don’t feel this way at school because it is really an eight month stay with only that break for the minimester session in January.
Another factor that I know has affected me and which is equally obvious is that this is a study abroad. I came with one suitcase leaving behind all that was familiar and worked to carve out a space in a faceless patterned hotel room. That impersonality coupled with my inability and lack of desire to decorate my room kept it impersonal and transitional. It is the little things I left behind that I wanted which surprised me the most like tape or scissors or posters. I won’t buy them here because I won’t use them enough to warrant the expense, but I know they exist at home, bought and resting in drawers for long periods of time (but you don’t have to lug them around when you travel if you had brought them abroad). But this is also an idiosyncrasy of my character that forces me to do this and not a comment on the whole study abroad experience.
I guess home is what you make it and how you live in it. For me these past six months have been transitional in all mental and physical aspects. This jaunt was not permanent, I knew that, which created sets of decisions to be made that would affect how I would see my life here. I don’t prefer transition. I like having the same place to come home to over and over again and I’ll be there soon enough.
Perhaps the best adage is home is where the heart is, and I know where that will put me: Catonsville.
I wish I had been able to get past that feeling, but I don’t think I will especially as my time left in Cairo dwindles. I don’t get that feeling though when I am in my dorm at UMBC. I don’t think I suffer from this despite it being a similar time, four months, because I am close to home. I usually feel this way during the month transition between fall and spring semesters but not during the summer. Perhaps I don’t feel this way at school because it is really an eight month stay with only that break for the minimester session in January.
Another factor that I know has affected me and which is equally obvious is that this is a study abroad. I came with one suitcase leaving behind all that was familiar and worked to carve out a space in a faceless patterned hotel room. That impersonality coupled with my inability and lack of desire to decorate my room kept it impersonal and transitional. It is the little things I left behind that I wanted which surprised me the most like tape or scissors or posters. I won’t buy them here because I won’t use them enough to warrant the expense, but I know they exist at home, bought and resting in drawers for long periods of time (but you don’t have to lug them around when you travel if you had brought them abroad). But this is also an idiosyncrasy of my character that forces me to do this and not a comment on the whole study abroad experience.
I guess home is what you make it and how you live in it. For me these past six months have been transitional in all mental and physical aspects. This jaunt was not permanent, I knew that, which created sets of decisions to be made that would affect how I would see my life here. I don’t prefer transition. I like having the same place to come home to over and over again and I’ll be there soon enough.
Perhaps the best adage is home is where the heart is, and I know where that will put me: Catonsville.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Blogorrhea
Five posts+one day=incredible, be sure to catch ‘em all!
Ahhh. My life has finally gotten routine again. You might say “Eww. Routine? Why would you want that in Egypt?” I would answer that I am a creature of habit, as I would argue that all of you are. Doing new things everyday is way too stressful. With my routines, I prefer to think of them as large circles (Aikido influence no doubt), I stay sane and happy and time passes at an acceptable rate.
Everyday I do Arabic, read from this textbook reader my former roommate gave me about Islamic culture, read for pleasure, and write. Three days a week I go to Aikido (see other recent post). And three days of week I get extended internet, dragging myself to campus for a couple of hours. I watch TV, go see movies, and eat dinner with my roommate. Also to spice it up, my roommate and I have some jaunts planned to see different parts of the city (to be honest things that he wants to do and I am going to tag along).
I also think everyday about home and being there, but I am not pining away. I miss it incredibly and want to go home, but I just trying living each day until July 31st arrives.
To further expand upon my reading interests I continue to explore different podcasts and online serials. Most recently I have started the podcast Infection by Scott Sigler which so far is okay. I am waiting for the story to pick up. Also I recently read some extra material tied to David Dunwoody’s Empire. They were two prequel like bits, one called After Dead which details how the zombie apocalypse started. Fantastic writing. Pete Clarke reminds me very much of Bannerman from David Wellington’s zombie trilogy. (If you don’t know who Bannerman is then you need to read the zombie novels start Monster Island. Then you might as well read the rest of his material as Bannerman pops up every now again to rock your socks off.)
There is also a little ditty called Meta Dead which is not in song form at all so the ditty conception doesn’t really work. It is an IM chat session between authors of zombie fiction and is incredibly creepy. The session takes place in between After Dead and Empire as the world is ending. It is a great medium to express the end of the world on because the reader gets several different perspectives. But what makes it so great is that the reader only knows what the IMer tells you leaving your mind straining to figure out what is going on outside of cyberspace. You end up creating all these events and conversations yourself that are occurring outside of cyberspace for the authors in the story. Good stuff.
Ahhh. My life has finally gotten routine again. You might say “Eww. Routine? Why would you want that in Egypt?” I would answer that I am a creature of habit, as I would argue that all of you are. Doing new things everyday is way too stressful. With my routines, I prefer to think of them as large circles (Aikido influence no doubt), I stay sane and happy and time passes at an acceptable rate.
Everyday I do Arabic, read from this textbook reader my former roommate gave me about Islamic culture, read for pleasure, and write. Three days a week I go to Aikido (see other recent post). And three days of week I get extended internet, dragging myself to campus for a couple of hours. I watch TV, go see movies, and eat dinner with my roommate. Also to spice it up, my roommate and I have some jaunts planned to see different parts of the city (to be honest things that he wants to do and I am going to tag along).
I also think everyday about home and being there, but I am not pining away. I miss it incredibly and want to go home, but I just trying living each day until July 31st arrives.
To further expand upon my reading interests I continue to explore different podcasts and online serials. Most recently I have started the podcast Infection by Scott Sigler which so far is okay. I am waiting for the story to pick up. Also I recently read some extra material tied to David Dunwoody’s Empire. They were two prequel like bits, one called After Dead which details how the zombie apocalypse started. Fantastic writing. Pete Clarke reminds me very much of Bannerman from David Wellington’s zombie trilogy. (If you don’t know who Bannerman is then you need to read the zombie novels start Monster Island. Then you might as well read the rest of his material as Bannerman pops up every now again to rock your socks off.)
There is also a little ditty called Meta Dead which is not in song form at all so the ditty conception doesn’t really work. It is an IM chat session between authors of zombie fiction and is incredibly creepy. The session takes place in between After Dead and Empire as the world is ending. It is a great medium to express the end of the world on because the reader gets several different perspectives. But what makes it so great is that the reader only knows what the IMer tells you leaving your mind straining to figure out what is going on outside of cyberspace. You end up creating all these events and conversations yourself that are occurring outside of cyberspace for the authors in the story. Good stuff.
100 word horror story
Here is a hundred word horror story for you all. It is part of an exercise in writing that the forum ablsolutewrite.com does.
Although an expert in lies, there was a storyteller who started telling the truth. Not on purpose. They just started to come true, which was a problem.
“Bear attack,” he said over the campfire but to himself, “Damn Indian story.”
“Tell us a yarn,” said George innocently.
Knowing what was going to happen he said, “Men sat around a campfire like this one. Only this time I’m not telling the story. He put words into my mouth, so others can find out about it. Those voyeuristic creeps all fell down dead, so we can live in peace.”
Let me know what you think...
Although an expert in lies, there was a storyteller who started telling the truth. Not on purpose. They just started to come true, which was a problem.
“Bear attack,” he said over the campfire but to himself, “Damn Indian story.”
“Tell us a yarn,” said George innocently.
Knowing what was going to happen he said, “Men sat around a campfire like this one. Only this time I’m not telling the story. He put words into my mouth, so others can find out about it. Those voyeuristic creeps all fell down dead, so we can live in peace.”
Let me know what you think...
storytelling 4 u
I want to revive the art of storytelling. I am not talking about that in books, because that is alive and well, you could argue just walk into a bookstore. I want to bring back storytelling, which existed before books, before TV, before radio, and before the internet. (Not that I don’t love all those things)
Maybe it is just me but I have a fascination with storytelling and old fashioned sort of things. I remember when my grandfather would tell me, my brother, and my cousin stories as we all slept over my grandparent’s house. We would all lie in one bed and he would come in and tell us stories about how we were knights and fighting bad guys.
I was just thinking about this last night which has maybe pushed me to actually move on the storytelling idea. There was that plus learning about the professional storytellers that used to exist in the Arabian world called hakaweyats (I think). These two catalysts burst the bubble that was festering in the pit of my brain with this idea. This is not the first time I have thought about this either.
Therefore, I think I will begin telling stories, sadly for now to myself, but when I get home I will subject my brothers to my storytelling. Hopefully by then I will be more confident and established. Also have some other TOP SECRET ideas with what I want to do with this idea. Just need to do some more research first.
Maybe it is just me but I have a fascination with storytelling and old fashioned sort of things. I remember when my grandfather would tell me, my brother, and my cousin stories as we all slept over my grandparent’s house. We would all lie in one bed and he would come in and tell us stories about how we were knights and fighting bad guys.
I was just thinking about this last night which has maybe pushed me to actually move on the storytelling idea. There was that plus learning about the professional storytellers that used to exist in the Arabian world called hakaweyats (I think). These two catalysts burst the bubble that was festering in the pit of my brain with this idea. This is not the first time I have thought about this either.
Therefore, I think I will begin telling stories, sadly for now to myself, but when I get home I will subject my brothers to my storytelling. Hopefully by then I will be more confident and established. Also have some other TOP SECRET ideas with what I want to do with this idea. Just need to do some more research first.
Aikido Master
I would have to say the best thing to happen to me since getting out of school is Aikido. I do not exaggerate.
Aikido has kept me from going out of my mind with cabin fever as it gets me out of the house for five hours (hour trip there, about two hour class, hour trip back, and one hour for Egypt time (spent waiting at the dojo or afterwards cleaning myself up)) three days a week.
Also my Aikido adventure puts me regularly in contact with Egyptians. If I did not have this, I would not really be talking to any of them, except for shopkeepers. I am not really able to go and talk to people in a café as others are. This makes me very fortunate. I lived with Egyptians during the school year and now I have regular contact with them. It makes my stay here worthwhile. When I leave for home, which I can’t wait for, I will be taking along contact information from several good Egyptian Aikido friends (possibly the best kind).
Also, it is Aikido. For me not much more needs to be said but I will explain anyway. I love Aikido. I get extremely happy during and after practices (those of you in the dorm should know), and it makes my life easier when I follow its philosophy. Spending time outside my home dojo has been incredibly challenging and a great learning experience both in terms of Aikido techniques and how well I can apply its philosophy to a new Aikido setting. I am also forced to see where my training is deficient. I see these deficiencies because dojos aren’t the same. The pattern that you fall into in yours may let you ignore easier what you really need to work on. I am not saying my dojo is deficient in this respect (it is solely an internal thing), in fact I prefer it to any I attend. But I had to adjust my rhythm to fit the new beat of the dojos in Egypt in terms of the people, the small variations on technique approach to basics, and the lifebeat of the dojo. Don’t get me wrong it is more the same than different, but different nonetheless. It was kind of a jostling where I am able to see my whole Aikido self in perspective. It is as if it is (talk about awkward but I like it) an out of body experience where you see what you need to work on.
I have always thought learning Aikido was an upward experience. My upward growth continues until today but coming to Egypt also brought an outwards learning (a horizontal expansion). I hope to bring that sort of mentality back to my home dojo and continue to use it there, and I also know that none of this would have been possible without my training under my sensei as well working with the other Aikidoka in America, especially those at UMBC. For my sensei and classmates, I am especially thankful.
Aikido has kept me from going out of my mind with cabin fever as it gets me out of the house for five hours (hour trip there, about two hour class, hour trip back, and one hour for Egypt time (spent waiting at the dojo or afterwards cleaning myself up)) three days a week.
Also my Aikido adventure puts me regularly in contact with Egyptians. If I did not have this, I would not really be talking to any of them, except for shopkeepers. I am not really able to go and talk to people in a café as others are. This makes me very fortunate. I lived with Egyptians during the school year and now I have regular contact with them. It makes my stay here worthwhile. When I leave for home, which I can’t wait for, I will be taking along contact information from several good Egyptian Aikido friends (possibly the best kind).
Also, it is Aikido. For me not much more needs to be said but I will explain anyway. I love Aikido. I get extremely happy during and after practices (those of you in the dorm should know), and it makes my life easier when I follow its philosophy. Spending time outside my home dojo has been incredibly challenging and a great learning experience both in terms of Aikido techniques and how well I can apply its philosophy to a new Aikido setting. I am also forced to see where my training is deficient. I see these deficiencies because dojos aren’t the same. The pattern that you fall into in yours may let you ignore easier what you really need to work on. I am not saying my dojo is deficient in this respect (it is solely an internal thing), in fact I prefer it to any I attend. But I had to adjust my rhythm to fit the new beat of the dojos in Egypt in terms of the people, the small variations on technique approach to basics, and the lifebeat of the dojo. Don’t get me wrong it is more the same than different, but different nonetheless. It was kind of a jostling where I am able to see my whole Aikido self in perspective. It is as if it is (talk about awkward but I like it) an out of body experience where you see what you need to work on.
I have always thought learning Aikido was an upward experience. My upward growth continues until today but coming to Egypt also brought an outwards learning (a horizontal expansion). I hope to bring that sort of mentality back to my home dojo and continue to use it there, and I also know that none of this would have been possible without my training under my sensei as well working with the other Aikidoka in America, especially those at UMBC. For my sensei and classmates, I am especially thankful.
Review of Earthcore by Scott Sigler
Earthcore is a podcast only novel by Scott Sigler which came out in 2006. Incidentally, it is the first online novel that I have listened to in its entirety.
This story details the adventures of the employees working for a mining company called Earthcore. In a race against what the company feels is a threat from other mining groups, it works through nefarious and legal schemes to obtain information and begin mining a platinum lode discovered by a wily prospector, by the name of Sonny McGuiness, in the WaWa mountain range in Utah.
As the company sets up a site, they begin to dig. Experiencing human factor problems until they enter the mine, the action really picks up as crews enter the mine shaft and tunnel system that exists under the mountain. What waits them is something that nobody has ever seen, even the anthropologist who has studied the matter.
Thankfully I was able to download all of the segments without waiting for them to come out because they entice you that much. The conclusion of the story is as gripping as the rest with many dead and much carnage in its wake.
Sigler uses the podcast to broadcast out a free novel for all his listeners performing all the characters himself. My favorite character was Sonny McGuiness. I enjoyed the novel immensely and felt that Sigler’s inventions of technology went well with the flow of the story without seeming too unrealistic. He also presented a lot of factual information blended into the story without seeming artificial or awkward. My only complaint would be with the resolution of Angus Cool’s situation. Without giving anything away, I would’ve liked to know specifically what happened to him (for those of you who haven’t heard it whether he lived or died, hahah) as he was such a little turd.
As his first podcast novel, Sigler established himself in the field for online novels. I look forward to reading others such as Ancestor, Nocturnal, and Infection.
This story details the adventures of the employees working for a mining company called Earthcore. In a race against what the company feels is a threat from other mining groups, it works through nefarious and legal schemes to obtain information and begin mining a platinum lode discovered by a wily prospector, by the name of Sonny McGuiness, in the WaWa mountain range in Utah.
As the company sets up a site, they begin to dig. Experiencing human factor problems until they enter the mine, the action really picks up as crews enter the mine shaft and tunnel system that exists under the mountain. What waits them is something that nobody has ever seen, even the anthropologist who has studied the matter.
Thankfully I was able to download all of the segments without waiting for them to come out because they entice you that much. The conclusion of the story is as gripping as the rest with many dead and much carnage in its wake.
Sigler uses the podcast to broadcast out a free novel for all his listeners performing all the characters himself. My favorite character was Sonny McGuiness. I enjoyed the novel immensely and felt that Sigler’s inventions of technology went well with the flow of the story without seeming too unrealistic. He also presented a lot of factual information blended into the story without seeming artificial or awkward. My only complaint would be with the resolution of Angus Cool’s situation. Without giving anything away, I would’ve liked to know specifically what happened to him (for those of you who haven’t heard it whether he lived or died, hahah) as he was such a little turd.
As his first podcast novel, Sigler established himself in the field for online novels. I look forward to reading others such as Ancestor, Nocturnal, and Infection.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Man really not having Internet makes it hard for me to post regularly. Sorry I have been slacking.
I watched half of the Grindhouse double feature by Rodriguez and Tarintino. I watched it with Nicholas, and we saw the Rodriguez half called Planet Terror. In the style of the 80s movies, it was absurd. My favorite part was the missing reel in the middle of the film which left a large gap in the story line.
This was the goriest movie that I have seen in a long while, some of it over the top gory other parts just gory. At first I was grossed out and turned off by the violence, but then I got used to it. That is what scared me. I saw how easy it was for me and by extension, others, to get acclimated to violence and gore rather quickly.
I started thinking about the novel I am writing about the vampire and its gore. In writing it, I have realized that I don’t necessarily like writing all those gory scenes, and in future stories, I don’t think I will be including that much blood and guts.
I have also noticed a transition in this blog, well more a branching. It still details my life in Egypt, but part of it is taking on a different aspect of a very specific part of my life. That is on blogging and serial writing (which is not bad). I am happy to be discussing this because it interests me. Whether you are interested in reading it or not, I don’t know.
I have been joining forums about serial novels, for serial novel writing, and for writing in general. As I do, I will post what I think of them especially the ones not focusing on a specific book. Three come to mind right now.
Ablsoute Write Water Cooler This is a major forum website that has advice for writers of all types. So far the environment has been very friendly, and I am looking forward to getting some advice and honing my writing skills outside of a class.
http://www.novelr.com/ This is a forum website and blog about serial novel writing. I haven’t explored it too much yet, getting internet every other day or so, so when I do I will post some more about it.
www.pagesunbound.com This website is one that really interests me basically because it exists to help me (and hundreds of other online writers of course). It is a website devoted to introducing writers and readers to other’s online fiction mostly in the form of web serials. I hope to be posting on it soon.
Lastly, in regards to Sunset, just a little note of celebration. This week’s post puts me at halfway or a little past depending on how the rest of the chapters go. Woopeee!
I watched half of the Grindhouse double feature by Rodriguez and Tarintino. I watched it with Nicholas, and we saw the Rodriguez half called Planet Terror. In the style of the 80s movies, it was absurd. My favorite part was the missing reel in the middle of the film which left a large gap in the story line.
This was the goriest movie that I have seen in a long while, some of it over the top gory other parts just gory. At first I was grossed out and turned off by the violence, but then I got used to it. That is what scared me. I saw how easy it was for me and by extension, others, to get acclimated to violence and gore rather quickly.
I started thinking about the novel I am writing about the vampire and its gore. In writing it, I have realized that I don’t necessarily like writing all those gory scenes, and in future stories, I don’t think I will be including that much blood and guts.
I have also noticed a transition in this blog, well more a branching. It still details my life in Egypt, but part of it is taking on a different aspect of a very specific part of my life. That is on blogging and serial writing (which is not bad). I am happy to be discussing this because it interests me. Whether you are interested in reading it or not, I don’t know.
I have been joining forums about serial novels, for serial novel writing, and for writing in general. As I do, I will post what I think of them especially the ones not focusing on a specific book. Three come to mind right now.
Ablsoute Write Water Cooler This is a major forum website that has advice for writers of all types. So far the environment has been very friendly, and I am looking forward to getting some advice and honing my writing skills outside of a class.
http://www.novelr.com/ This is a forum website and blog about serial novel writing. I haven’t explored it too much yet, getting internet every other day or so, so when I do I will post some more about it.
www.pagesunbound.com This website is one that really interests me basically because it exists to help me (and hundreds of other online writers of course). It is a website devoted to introducing writers and readers to other’s online fiction mostly in the form of web serials. I hope to be posting on it soon.
Lastly, in regards to Sunset, just a little note of celebration. This week’s post puts me at halfway or a little past depending on how the rest of the chapters go. Woopeee!
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
new blog to look at
i have tried to post this three gorram times and each time the internet has cut out
check out this blog http://www.mtannoyances.com/ if i drop some knowledge on you at a party we are at you will know why.
check out this blog http://www.mtannoyances.com/ if i drop some knowledge on you at a party we are at you will know why.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
return to aikido
If any of you who read this are thinking of picking up a martial art, I strongly suggest Aikido. Aside from the awesomeness of the techniques and life philosophy, I have yet to find a jerk or tough guy wanna be in the mix. Basically they are all good guys. I think the philosophy of Aikido and the way the martial art is taught it filters out the guys who are just looking to hurt people and leaves no room for those guys who have something to prove.
I returned to Aikido last night and was welcomed back as if I had been gone two days instead of two months. It was wonderful because the friends I had made from before were there some even showing up for the first time in two months as well. (that was a little weird and spooky because about four people, myself included, came back yesterday.
I left happy, tired, and dehydrated and woke up sore but I look forward to going back tomorrow.
I returned to Aikido last night and was welcomed back as if I had been gone two days instead of two months. It was wonderful because the friends I had made from before were there some even showing up for the first time in two months as well. (that was a little weird and spooky because about four people, myself included, came back yesterday.
I left happy, tired, and dehydrated and woke up sore but I look forward to going back tomorrow.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
podcasting
My new thing is podcasts. I love ‘em and listen to them everyday just before I go to bed. I did sell my soul and download iTunes, but it was worth it. With iTunes I am able to get these wonderful broadcasts.
My exploration of podcasts began with searching out Firefly related material, as has a lot of my new endeavors. (Serial novels also began with reading Firefly fanfic and then moved on to David Wellington) All of what I listen to is novels or short stories. I don’t really go for the talk shows.
Some of the Firefly podcasts that I can speak to are Tales from the Verse and Severance. Tales from the Verse is a podcast which posts fan submitted stories about once a month. Most of them have been pretty entertaining and satisfy my fix for Firefly. The other one was Severance by Andy Evans. It is a completed podcast novel about the activities on this moon called Severance in the Firefly universe. It is an okay story, the plot is a little slow but the story got interesting in the last chapters.
I have also gone crazy and downloaded some other podcasts including stories read by Cory Doctorow which promise to be interesting based on the other stuff of his that I have read (Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and Eastern Standard Tribe) as well as my first exploration with Scott Sigler. I have just started Sigler’s podiobook called Earthcore and it has got me hooked. When I listen to a podcast the plot needs to be good (obviously) but the reader/narrator, whether it is the author or not, needs to read smoothly and have a good voice. Sigler has all of this. I urge you to check it out as he has many other books in podcast form including Rookie, Nocturnal, and Infected. If you want more science fiction check out clonepod. I think it is just various short science fiction stories. Haven’t heard any myself, so I can’t vouch for it yet.
If I were ever to have a podcast for something, I would get either Jason Statham or my brother to read it. I think they have good voices.
My exploration of podcasts began with searching out Firefly related material, as has a lot of my new endeavors. (Serial novels also began with reading Firefly fanfic and then moved on to David Wellington) All of what I listen to is novels or short stories. I don’t really go for the talk shows.
Some of the Firefly podcasts that I can speak to are Tales from the Verse and Severance. Tales from the Verse is a podcast which posts fan submitted stories about once a month. Most of them have been pretty entertaining and satisfy my fix for Firefly. The other one was Severance by Andy Evans. It is a completed podcast novel about the activities on this moon called Severance in the Firefly universe. It is an okay story, the plot is a little slow but the story got interesting in the last chapters.
I have also gone crazy and downloaded some other podcasts including stories read by Cory Doctorow which promise to be interesting based on the other stuff of his that I have read (Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and Eastern Standard Tribe) as well as my first exploration with Scott Sigler. I have just started Sigler’s podiobook called Earthcore and it has got me hooked. When I listen to a podcast the plot needs to be good (obviously) but the reader/narrator, whether it is the author or not, needs to read smoothly and have a good voice. Sigler has all of this. I urge you to check it out as he has many other books in podcast form including Rookie, Nocturnal, and Infected. If you want more science fiction check out clonepod. I think it is just various short science fiction stories. Haven’t heard any myself, so I can’t vouch for it yet.
If I were ever to have a podcast for something, I would get either Jason Statham or my brother to read it. I think they have good voices.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
IT THUNDERSTORMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
I will be posting in spurts from now on until I get home and can get Internet from there, so look for one or more posts when you see a new one. This is important if you want to catch all of what I am writing. :)
My roommate and I were watching this movie called Funny Games the other night. Aside from being really hot, we were sitting there sweating the whole time, even with the fan, it was really creepy. It is a weird German film about these two young men, one fat one skinny, who go to these rich vacation homes while the owners are there and torture and kill them. The whole time they do it, they are pleasant and polite.
Anyway, that is to set the scene. While we were watching the movie we start hearing these booms coming from behind the other apartment building next to us. They come in bursts, and these aren’t little firecracker explosions. We thought we were getting bombed, seriously. I expected that some rebellion had occurred and that the military was using tanks to reclaim order. Either that or planes were dropping bombs on all the government buildings. My roommate and I didn’t hear the telltale fizzle or sparkle to indicate that these were fireworks. We go out and investigate and catch the last of the explosions: fireworks for an inauguration of something.
So we start watching the movie again and then it starts lightening, thundering, and pouring violently for about ten minutes. Besides being the first glorious thunderstorm that I have seen in a long while, we thought it was the end of the world.
It cooled for a while after the downpour then got humid and hot as Cairo is wont to do.
My roommate and I were watching this movie called Funny Games the other night. Aside from being really hot, we were sitting there sweating the whole time, even with the fan, it was really creepy. It is a weird German film about these two young men, one fat one skinny, who go to these rich vacation homes while the owners are there and torture and kill them. The whole time they do it, they are pleasant and polite.
Anyway, that is to set the scene. While we were watching the movie we start hearing these booms coming from behind the other apartment building next to us. They come in bursts, and these aren’t little firecracker explosions. We thought we were getting bombed, seriously. I expected that some rebellion had occurred and that the military was using tanks to reclaim order. Either that or planes were dropping bombs on all the government buildings. My roommate and I didn’t hear the telltale fizzle or sparkle to indicate that these were fireworks. We go out and investigate and catch the last of the explosions: fireworks for an inauguration of something.
So we start watching the movie again and then it starts lightening, thundering, and pouring violently for about ten minutes. Besides being the first glorious thunderstorm that I have seen in a long while, we thought it was the end of the world.
It cooled for a while after the downpour then got humid and hot as Cairo is wont to do.
Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution
The first few notes of ACDC’s “Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution” belt out of computer situated atop a rickety table covered in a colorful fabric probably purchased at the Tent Maker’s Market in Islamic Cairo.
I sit with my shirt off in the coolness of the living room listening to a song and especially a band that epitomizes summer for me. Instead of sipping beer, I am sipping hot tea with sugar while listening the hum of the air conditioner. Not mine of course, but across the way in the next apartment building. The faint noises of traffic and people reach my ears as I sit here taking it all in.
“It’ll always be rhythms, its never gonna die, never gonna die
Rock and roll ain’t noise pollution
Rock and roll ain’t gonna die
Rock and roll ain’t noise pollution
Rock and roll will survive. (Yes it will, haha.)”
This is life in Cairo. It is hot and sweaty, overwhelming and crowded, and mean and dirty. But there is a rhythm to the street that is different than the rhythm of my suburban neighborhood. I can step out of my apartment, say hi to my doorman, Salama, who sleeps under the stairs (think Harry Potter) and immediately encounter twenty people on street all going somewhere. The shops are open selling their goods, the lady sitting on the sidewalk surrounded by her vegetables is talking loudly on her cell phone, and tourists walk out of a nearby hotel. The active hours are different. People stay up later and sleep in to beat the heat; for me its hard work adjusting my circadian rhythms.
There is plenty of pollution here from the dirt on the street to the stains on my shirt from the other night’s downpour (yes it finally thunderstormed here). When not passing trash on the streets, I watch it pass from people’s hands to the ground. However, I am also polluted with something else: people. The crowds here give Cairo its life whether you pass by the doormen that litter each of the stoops of the apartments, try and brave the traffic crossing Qasr al Aini, or walk into a ful and tamiya shop around eleven o’clock wanting breakfast. We are polluted with humanity.
And Cairo ain’t going anywhere, pollution and all. It will survive, it always has in one form or another, yes it will.
P.S. My roommate just walked in and we both commented on how wonderful a day it is temperature-wise. Then he turned to me and said its 95 degrees. We are getting adjusted.
I sit with my shirt off in the coolness of the living room listening to a song and especially a band that epitomizes summer for me. Instead of sipping beer, I am sipping hot tea with sugar while listening the hum of the air conditioner. Not mine of course, but across the way in the next apartment building. The faint noises of traffic and people reach my ears as I sit here taking it all in.
“It’ll always be rhythms, its never gonna die, never gonna die
Rock and roll ain’t noise pollution
Rock and roll ain’t gonna die
Rock and roll ain’t noise pollution
Rock and roll will survive. (Yes it will, haha.)”
This is life in Cairo. It is hot and sweaty, overwhelming and crowded, and mean and dirty. But there is a rhythm to the street that is different than the rhythm of my suburban neighborhood. I can step out of my apartment, say hi to my doorman, Salama, who sleeps under the stairs (think Harry Potter) and immediately encounter twenty people on street all going somewhere. The shops are open selling their goods, the lady sitting on the sidewalk surrounded by her vegetables is talking loudly on her cell phone, and tourists walk out of a nearby hotel. The active hours are different. People stay up later and sleep in to beat the heat; for me its hard work adjusting my circadian rhythms.
There is plenty of pollution here from the dirt on the street to the stains on my shirt from the other night’s downpour (yes it finally thunderstormed here). When not passing trash on the streets, I watch it pass from people’s hands to the ground. However, I am also polluted with something else: people. The crowds here give Cairo its life whether you pass by the doormen that litter each of the stoops of the apartments, try and brave the traffic crossing Qasr al Aini, or walk into a ful and tamiya shop around eleven o’clock wanting breakfast. We are polluted with humanity.
And Cairo ain’t going anywhere, pollution and all. It will survive, it always has in one form or another, yes it will.
P.S. My roommate just walked in and we both commented on how wonderful a day it is temperature-wise. Then he turned to me and said its 95 degrees. We are getting adjusted.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
List of Activities
Now that I have finished being sick, I can get on with life. For me, this basically entails several things which keep me busy.
1. Arabic-textbook, comic books (by far more interesting) but both are incredibly slooow and hard.
2. For lack of a better part of a word textbooks-This consists of a huge packet (several hundred pages) of material about the cultural history of the Middle East in the early years of the development of the Islamic empire. This includes everything from the Arabic language (grammar and lexicon development) to religion to law.
3. Working on my blogs-much fun.
4. Writing-the funnest.
5. Working up the courage to go and talk with some shopkeeper who makes chairs by weaving them with cane. I did a little at summer camp, and want to become acquaintances so he will show me his trade (maybe) and I can speak Arabic.
6. Sleeping-been doing a lot of that.
7. Reading online material and listening to podcasts, my new favorite.
8. Cooking my own meals and having someone to eat them with. (This is one of the things I treasure and that I miss doing with my family.
9. Going back to Aikido!
10. Waiting to be reunited with my family.
So as you can see very busy, but it is much fun. Just very hot. We stay inside all day if we are able and venture out only if we need to.
For food related adventures, we went out looking for new places to eat and went to a koshary hall, where we got a new dish. It was penne noodles with some sort of meat product in a sweet sauce. Nicholas thinks the meat was sheep or goat, but definitely not beef. (Hope it was not dog! Perdita you might find yourself in the pot) I made eggs this morning, but our gas ran out in the middle of it. We had to call Salama, our go to doorman (literally for anything we need help with or need) and he fixed us up all shiny. (I’ve been watching too much Firefly, for those of you who caught the reference.)
For books that I am reading that some of you might like:
Eastern Standard Time by Cory Doctorow-It is about tribalism centered around time zones. Apparently this book is known to some (another firefly reference!) Interesting read also with the technological bent.
The Harvest Cycle by David Dunwoody-The Apocalyspe mixed with monsters who ravage people for their ability to dream with violent robots thrown into the mix for good taste. Quite good and a story currently being posted every Wednesday and Friday
Abandon by Greg Carter and Elliot Dombo-A twice weekly comic (Tuesday and Thursday) about the original vampire. A bit different than might story but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t rock. Check it out!
1. Arabic-textbook, comic books (by far more interesting) but both are incredibly slooow and hard.
2. For lack of a better part of a word textbooks-This consists of a huge packet (several hundred pages) of material about the cultural history of the Middle East in the early years of the development of the Islamic empire. This includes everything from the Arabic language (grammar and lexicon development) to religion to law.
3. Working on my blogs-much fun.
4. Writing-the funnest.
5. Working up the courage to go and talk with some shopkeeper who makes chairs by weaving them with cane. I did a little at summer camp, and want to become acquaintances so he will show me his trade (maybe) and I can speak Arabic.
6. Sleeping-been doing a lot of that.
7. Reading online material and listening to podcasts, my new favorite.
8. Cooking my own meals and having someone to eat them with. (This is one of the things I treasure and that I miss doing with my family.
9. Going back to Aikido!
10. Waiting to be reunited with my family.
So as you can see very busy, but it is much fun. Just very hot. We stay inside all day if we are able and venture out only if we need to.
For food related adventures, we went out looking for new places to eat and went to a koshary hall, where we got a new dish. It was penne noodles with some sort of meat product in a sweet sauce. Nicholas thinks the meat was sheep or goat, but definitely not beef. (Hope it was not dog! Perdita you might find yourself in the pot) I made eggs this morning, but our gas ran out in the middle of it. We had to call Salama, our go to doorman (literally for anything we need help with or need) and he fixed us up all shiny. (I’ve been watching too much Firefly, for those of you who caught the reference.)
For books that I am reading that some of you might like:
Eastern Standard Time by Cory Doctorow-It is about tribalism centered around time zones. Apparently this book is known to some (another firefly reference!) Interesting read also with the technological bent.
The Harvest Cycle by David Dunwoody-The Apocalyspe mixed with monsters who ravage people for their ability to dream with violent robots thrown into the mix for good taste. Quite good and a story currently being posted every Wednesday and Friday
Abandon by Greg Carter and Elliot Dombo-A twice weekly comic (Tuesday and Thursday) about the original vampire. A bit different than might story but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t rock. Check it out!
Sunday, June 8, 2008
the beginnings of summer
well it started fortitously enough. I moved into an apartment and then promptly managed to get sick. Pretty sick too. It was the first time away from my family that I have been sick enough to want to go home-the last time was in junior year of high school. I realized that I wanted my mother to take care of me.
I blame it on this new fiteer place that I ate at where I got pizza, really greasy pizza. It is the only thing that Nicholas and I haven't both eaten so circumstantial evidence points to them.
Not much to report just yet. I am better and it is still hot. There are also lots of new faces at AUC as the summer session kids have arrived.
Still not sure if staying here for another two months was the wisest course. My roommates back home are down at the beach right now and my family is at home.
I also found that my dog is scared of foxes. For those of you who don't know, she is a suspected foxhound! As master of the house, she has no troubles barking at EVERY SINGLE living thing that walks by, but when a fox starts yelping in the moonlight she goes whimpering to my parents. Poor thing. I have also had a run in with the fox. In fact it scared me enough that I threatened it with violence. Maybe it is the same fox, terrorizing the same household for laughs...
I blame it on this new fiteer place that I ate at where I got pizza, really greasy pizza. It is the only thing that Nicholas and I haven't both eaten so circumstantial evidence points to them.
Not much to report just yet. I am better and it is still hot. There are also lots of new faces at AUC as the summer session kids have arrived.
Still not sure if staying here for another two months was the wisest course. My roommates back home are down at the beach right now and my family is at home.
I also found that my dog is scared of foxes. For those of you who don't know, she is a suspected foxhound! As master of the house, she has no troubles barking at EVERY SINGLE living thing that walks by, but when a fox starts yelping in the moonlight she goes whimpering to my parents. Poor thing. I have also had a run in with the fox. In fact it scared me enough that I threatened it with violence. Maybe it is the same fox, terrorizing the same household for laughs...
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
New Blog! Middle East Coca Cola
howdy!
I started a new blog to do my part in addressing the cultural awareness deficiency about the Middle East. Check it out here and send me any ideas or questions of stuff you want me to cover.
I started a new blog to do my part in addressing the cultural awareness deficiency about the Middle East. Check it out here and send me any ideas or questions of stuff you want me to cover.
Monday, June 2, 2008
The End is Nigh
The school year is over!
I have finished and will be moving out of a hotel and into an apartment today at 3 pm. It was a good school year, busier than most but a lot of fun. I now just get to chill...well sweat actually. The aparment that Nicholas and I got is very small. It has a tiny bathroom and kitchen, and two bedrooms. One has two small beds and the other is to me combination masterbedroom and living room. There is no separate living room dining room area that I recall. We got it for cheap, at 2000 pounds per month in a nice part of the city: Garden City.
I also went to the Mogamma today which is the governmental center of the overladened bureaucracy that is the government of Egypt. It was insane; thankfully I was in and out in an hour. Right around 1030 I noticed that the crush of people had significantly lessened. It was weird. I didn't feel the heat from the bodies behind me. I stopped boxing people out while waiting to get up to the counter (Anna you would be proud). It got quieter and less sweaty. What a wonderful thing Egyptian breakfasts are.
If you want to know what the Mogamma is like watch this movie Al Irhab wal Kabab or Terrorism and Bar.b.que. It is actually filmed at the Mogamma (you can even see my school in one shot) and depicts the chaos within this building. Upon entering, I was immediately lost in the bowels of the Mogamma amidst swarms of people eating, talking, walking, and waiting...mostly waiting.
Here are the necessary requirements for getting through the Mogamma:
1. Patience
2. Patience
3. A veteran of the Mogamma, preferably someone reliable who will tell you what you need so that when you get through all the lines to one counter, you can finish everything that one time. (I was missing one thing)
4. Arabic! (even limited)
5. Have previously viewed Al Irhab wal Kabab (it puts it all in perspective)
6. Provisions for two days in case of crowds (including first aid for falling up steps (which I saw), bribes for guards, and food for stamina. Thankfully none of this was necessary...this time.
7. Patience.
The Mogamma is worse than the MVA mostly because there aren't a million people trying to go through the MVA. It may seem like that at the MVA but there may actually be a million people going through the Mogamma in a course of a day. Hopefully I will never experience the full force of the Mogamma, as you would probably never see me again.
As for future postings things are up in the air on how regular it will be. My apartment does not have internet, but I know of an a nearby internet cafe and bakery with free wireless. Once I get settled I will be able to know for sure.
Thanks for all your help this semester in whatever form it came in! Love and miss you all.
tim
I have finished and will be moving out of a hotel and into an apartment today at 3 pm. It was a good school year, busier than most but a lot of fun. I now just get to chill...well sweat actually. The aparment that Nicholas and I got is very small. It has a tiny bathroom and kitchen, and two bedrooms. One has two small beds and the other is to me combination masterbedroom and living room. There is no separate living room dining room area that I recall. We got it for cheap, at 2000 pounds per month in a nice part of the city: Garden City.
I also went to the Mogamma today which is the governmental center of the overladened bureaucracy that is the government of Egypt. It was insane; thankfully I was in and out in an hour. Right around 1030 I noticed that the crush of people had significantly lessened. It was weird. I didn't feel the heat from the bodies behind me. I stopped boxing people out while waiting to get up to the counter (Anna you would be proud). It got quieter and less sweaty. What a wonderful thing Egyptian breakfasts are.
If you want to know what the Mogamma is like watch this movie Al Irhab wal Kabab or Terrorism and Bar.b.que. It is actually filmed at the Mogamma (you can even see my school in one shot) and depicts the chaos within this building. Upon entering, I was immediately lost in the bowels of the Mogamma amidst swarms of people eating, talking, walking, and waiting...mostly waiting.
Here are the necessary requirements for getting through the Mogamma:
1. Patience
2. Patience
3. A veteran of the Mogamma, preferably someone reliable who will tell you what you need so that when you get through all the lines to one counter, you can finish everything that one time. (I was missing one thing)
4. Arabic! (even limited)
5. Have previously viewed Al Irhab wal Kabab (it puts it all in perspective)
6. Provisions for two days in case of crowds (including first aid for falling up steps (which I saw), bribes for guards, and food for stamina. Thankfully none of this was necessary...this time.
7. Patience.
The Mogamma is worse than the MVA mostly because there aren't a million people trying to go through the MVA. It may seem like that at the MVA but there may actually be a million people going through the Mogamma in a course of a day. Hopefully I will never experience the full force of the Mogamma, as you would probably never see me again.
As for future postings things are up in the air on how regular it will be. My apartment does not have internet, but I know of an a nearby internet cafe and bakery with free wireless. Once I get settled I will be able to know for sure.
Thanks for all your help this semester in whatever form it came in! Love and miss you all.
tim
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