Random Thoughts

I wonder why do I waste so many chances on people I used to care for, realizing that I need the courage to have enough force to cut it off and move on. I have to keep reminding myself that those you are care for must also care for you, it is a give and take, you can't be such a fool to give for always (a friend is never a mother), and of course, a selfish person who always take, is never worth it.

This should be obvious, but it is amazing how a human being is so blind even with the most powerful eye, even with the best powers of observation. There will be always a missed hint, a missed shot, a misunderstanding.

It is so hard to be clear to a friend, or an ex-friend, who decides not to be clear to you. A friend like that should be wasted off your life as soon as possible.

Random thoughts…

Couples are young so they screw up a lot, their families are too old so they try to make their youngster do what they didn't succeed in in their youth.

 

Sometimes you are so alone, so you go to a big tea party to be more lonely, so you try to get out to get back to yourself. It is like you are the box itself, you can't go in, you can't think out of it. You are stuck. The only solution is to burst yourself to survive.

 

Sometimes you try to mingle with the right people in the wrong time, sometimes with the wrong people in the right time, though both are always better than meeting the wrong people in the wrong time. This worst scenario must be experienced, but must be experienced once, and try as much as you can, never get into this again, and instead, wait, like a hunter, and just shoot. The right people..the right time, just be sure of being right and never care about what others think of. Did someone say that hell is the others?

 

All the talks, all the hypocrisy, you think someone cares, but the thing is, who cares, no body cares until you "earn" the attention. You can't just get something because you deserve, you need to do the extra mile and earn it.

 

I just need to realize that no matter how less I sometimes do, that I should know when does less means less and when does less means more.

 

I need to practice to write myself out more often, to free myself of all the negativity filling my veins, all the negativity that I'm trying to bury for years and years.

 

I need to thank God for the gift of life, and all the other gifts I'm blessed with.

A look to the present from the past.

As a part of Rasha's Good Old Blogging Days, I just miss those days, where the blogs were your own kingdom, before Social Networks came to steal this genuine spirit.

People shared their very fine personal details to people they don't even know. Online people knew each other for long, just for the heck of friendship. Looking for truth and warmth they didn't find in the real world. Expressing their views to people who are like-minded, or who are open-minded, or both.

Blogging was a place of acceptance, a place they can be free and wild, were they can virtually dance with the whole world watching, a place where all their dreams come true. A Utopia where every one believed in. I once read, maybe it was in the Bible, that the Kingdom of Christ is not on this land, it is in Heaven. So is blogging, our Kingdom was on the virgin Internet.

I wish I can express myself more in blogging, I miss those old days, I miss the friends I made through blogging. I miss much of the warm feelings I felt before.

I want to thank everyone who made me happy for even once, thank you very much.

Happy Birthday Global Voices!

So, it has been a while since I joined Global Voices, first as a translator, then author, then Editor for the Arabic Lingua project. I always found the time I spent contributing to Global Voices rewarding, in every way possible.

It has been almost 2 years since I was first introduced by Eman AbdelRahman who joined the community previously. She told me about it several times but back then I was satisfied by being only a reader. It was until I found a post of mine referred to by Amira Al Hussaini in one of her updates, I can’t deny I was impressed by being noticed at that time, never expected that.

In the same time I was impressed by the Lingua project, how can a website constantly updated be translated to 20+ languages only on volunteer based efforts. I never even saw a commercial project with this size and this diversity in languages, people from all around the world contributing and meeting every now and then for organizing all the work, and in the same time everything is just transparent, no “hidden agenda”, and almost with no bias.

After that I applied to join the volunteer translators team in the Arabic Lingua project. With every post I read, every one I translated, I always learnt something new. I discovered how can this world be the same in many parts of it and still stay very diverse.

Then I became an author, though not very active, but seeing my posts translated to languages like Russian, Italian and Bengali and that things I write can be read by people who don’t speak my language, who speak languages I don’t even know, and live in countries I never visited…it is just amazing.

I enjoyed meeting people from every corner of the Earth. It is awesome when something happens anywhere and you know a person from the same place who call tell you more about it.

One of the best things I really appreciate is attending the Global Voices summit which happened last May in Chile. Enjoying my first 27 hours flight (my last flight was in 1998 and it only lasted 100 minutes), meeting people I knew online for a long time before meeting them in person. Enjoying a beautiful country far away from home. Realizing that knowing English doesn’t guarantee that the language bar is not there. It gave me a passion to know about the Spanish speaking culture and Latin America in general.

So…Happy birthday Global Voices, it's six years old now. Good luck for many years to come in making more voices more reachable, and in facilitating more conversations between different corners of the world with all the diverse languages. Don't forget to donate to Global Voices if you want to support how it removes barriers to make more conversations between different parts of the world.

Denied visa

So today I was denied entry visa to go to Spain.

I got a scholarship to attend the Mozilla drumbeat festival 3 weeks ago, taking place in Barcelona, Spain. The festival is taking place from 3 to 5 November. After preparing all the documents according to the consulate website, went to the Spanish consulate in Alexandria after a call for booking an appointment, was kept there for 3 hours waiting for handling the visa application and the papers to the Spanish Consul.
Then I called them today to be informed that the visa application is cancelled. Why? The personnel who replied said that he is not authorized to state the refusal reasons. I’m not sure if anything can be done, but this is totally ridiculous. This is a well known event hosted by Mozilla in Spain, they should be more careful to use such kinds of events to improve the Spanish image in the field of digital media.