hi from abidjan

i'm currently in cote d'ivoire for work. i don't have time to post, i'll post about my trip when back in cairo after 10 days
so take care till then

back

it has been a while since i wrote anything due to work and life.. but here i am. i don't talk about what everybody talks about these days... not cos i don't have something to say but cos i just feel that i want to think about other things, and cos i guess that u can find discussions about all that.

never mind, i'll just write what i wanted to say today in my post :)

i was confronted to 2 persons today that made me surprised in their behavior. the 1st person, was an officer. these guys are usually poor, and in my opinion, they suffer too. he was, with 2 others, at the door of the embassy of Ivory Coast. i wanted to enter, so he showed me the way, cos to enter, u have to go in the garden around the building till u arrive to the stairs.
after i finished and i came down, i found him and showed me the way out. i thought that he did it cos he wanted to take tips (i usually don't like those situations) so i took 1LE out of my pocket but he refused (now i was embarrassed).

the 2nd person was a taxi driver. i took a taxi from Tahrir Square to Zamalek. just after i entered he said to discuss the fair saying that petrol prices are higher (in egypt they are not going up, they just made a new more expensive type of petrol but the old types still the same). he wanted a big price compared to the distance (he asked for what i would pay to go from Tahrir to Heliopolis). and i wanted to pay half what he asked for. anyway, i payed him more than i was intending to do, but he didn't like it and asked for more. i just wanted to say that maybe i won't deal with him again, but treating customers like this, will make them to dislike him.
just after that situation; i thought about the 1st guy, and the differences between the 2 situations and the 2 people.

3 explosions + holiday + sinai

does it ring bells?

i can't express what i feel. what is that world? explosions every where, people killed any time.. for what???

looking for nothing

after working almost 24 hours a day (i only slept one hour last night, or i should say this morning), all i want is to have a time off and do NOTHING.
i don't know what i'll do the next few days, fortunatly it is vacation, so i'll take maybe a day or two not to think about the rest of the work to be done.
all i want to do is sleep, say sorry if the last few days i was not so nice with people, and enjoy the nothing and stay away from my pc.
i guess it is time to go and sleeeeeeep and enjoy no one wakes me up, (not my mom, not the alarm)
by the way, in the case i sleep till tuesday (ya reit), Happy Easter and Happy Sham El Nassim.

song

L'hymne à l'amour by Edith Piaf (1949)

Le ciel bleu sur nous peut s'effondrer
Et la terre peut bien s'écrouler
Peu m'importe si tu m'aimes
Je me fous du monde entier
Tant qu'l'amour inond'ra mes matins
Tant que mon corps frémira sous tes mains
Peu m'importe les problèmes
Mon amour puisque tu m'aimes

J'irais jusqu'au bout du monde
Je me ferais teindre en blonde
Si tu me le demandais
J'irais décrocher la lune
J'irais voler la fortune
Si tu me le demandais

Je renierais ma patrie
Je renierais mes amis
Si tu me le demandais
On peut bien rire de moi
Je ferais n'importe quoi
Si tu me le demandais

Si un jour la vie t'arrache à moi
Si tu meurs que tu sois loin de moi
Peu m'importe si tu m'aimes
Car moi je mourrais aussi
Nous aurons pour nous l'éternité
Dans le bleu de toute l'immensité
Dans le ciel plus de problèmes
Mon amour crois-tu qu'on s'aime
Dieu réunit ceux qui s'aiment

advise

try to benefit from the moment of happiness cos they are getting rare in this world

not in mood

not in mood to blog anything these days, so please accept my silence.

why falling?

I like to know about languages and stories behind words or sentences.
today, on my home from work, there was a lot of traffic so we took more time than the usual. a strange thought crossed my mind. the saying "falling in love" is the same in english, arabic and french. (usually expressions differ from one language to another).
i was thinking, why the verb "falling"? well, i believe that it is inapropiate cos when someone is in love, he is not falling but he is going on the opposit way, as if on a high cloud in the sky, so that he doesn't see what's under him. when you are in love, you are feeling like flying away from everything but not falling at all :).
also people say that when you love, you are free. i believe that it is not that totally true cos you could be liberated but still there are new bounds in your life (even if nice bounds), the simplest thing is that when you are in love, you are not alone, there is the other person, so as much as there is freedom, as much as that you become more attached.

msn beda2y

my friends and me were in a place with very loud music so that we couldn't hear our conversations very good... so this was the solution :)
it was really fun.

few days ago i was faced with the question why i created my blog?
i couldn't find a specific answer to that question at that time, but i guess i discovered the answer when i checked some of what i wrote during the last year. i discovered what is life about. it is about the little things we see or feel, but without sharing all that, we lose something of it.

looking back to the past year, i feel i'm older (not just adding a number to my age), but older with all the experiences i had, the good and the bad.
i know that i changed a lot, i'm not the same person as i was.

sometimes i feel so happy, sometimes i feel so bad, but i learned that friends are there all the time, u just have to trust them, i hope i'll be able to do it and break the walls around me.

Graduation

prayer

let's pray for peace and for all the people suffering in the world.
time goes by but the feelings never die.
it may take a year or two, or even five, but there is still hope alive.
so when you go to sleep tonight, say a prayer to end the fights.

surprising scene

few days ago, i was in a taxi in dokki and the street was a little crowded, so we were moving with moderate speed. we crossed by a woman, in a wheel chair, opening the driver's door to enter.
i was happy to see that. i know that there are not a lot of facilities for the disabled (almost inexistant) so i was suprised and at the same time i was excited about it so i'm sharing this with u cos instead of her disability + the lack of facilities in the country, she was able to drive a car. if i saw the same woman in another country, i wouldn't be as much surprised as to c her in cairo.

30 September 1945

This is an extract from the journal of Dr. Michihiko Hyachiya, a Japenese doctor who was in Hiroshima when the 1st atomic bomb in the world was dropped, the 6th of august 1945.
in his journal, he writes about what he felt, what he observed (it was the 1st time to see such symptoms for radiation, they didn't know what was it at first), as a doctor and as a survivor.
this is extract is a converstion between the doctor and an american soldier who was visiting the hospital, after the japense emperor had announced the defeat and americans began to arrive in the city.

30 September 1945
... one of them standing near the window said suddenly,
- and you what do you think about the bombardement?
- i am buddhist i answered, and since childhood i was taught to resign. I lost myhome and my health but i consider myself a lucky man because my life and my wife's were preserved.
- i can't share your sentiments, said the young american soldier. in your place, i think i would make a lawsuit to the responsible country.
He was still there for a moment, contemplating the ruins before leaving.
Longtime afterwards, i had the feeling hearing him saying: "making a lawsuit to the country... making a lawsuit..."
i had the feeling that that these words will remain incomprehensible forever.

P.S. i translate this from french
it was published in Science & Vie no 1055 August 2005

My New Blog

i'll post in the new blog events (concerts, exhibition... ) in egypt and it will be updated weekly.
i got this idea cos i receive a lot of mails about events or read in the newspaper... so i guess it would be nice if everything is gathered in one place.
i started by putting music events... starting from next month, i'll add other events such as exhibitions, conferences...
i hope u'll enjoy it.
here is the link: http://eventsinegypt.blogspot.com/

dedicated to my friends

i had a weird feeling today. i believe that even good friends, when time passes and each one goes in a separate way, this friendship fade a little and becomes weaker. but today, i met/ talked to friends i didn't meet for a long time (some for months), all in one day at different times.
i discovered how happy i was, and i felt that it was just like yesterday that we last met, and most important, i felt that this friendship didn't die no matter what happened, and i realized that i miss them even if i don't admit it.

faculty of engineering, cairo univ, 100 years ago...

Le Clemenceau fait demi tour

Few weeks ago, there were some concerns about Le Clemenceau (a french military ship) to continue its trip to India where it was going to be dismantled and disamianted (not sure about this word). It stayed a week in Suez Canal before allowing to continue its trip to India.
And now according to La Tribune, arrived to destination, it will go back to France to reexamine it and determine how much dangerous material is on it (officially they say it is around 40 tons of amiant but some reports say it is far more than that).
but this time, the way back to France will not pass by Suez Canal, but all around Africa.

This is how things should go, even if this operation will cost a lot of money for the country, even if at the end they will discover someone hided the truth of how much it is dangerous, they are not afraid to admit they were wrong and assume theire responsabilities and show the example to the rest of the world.

when u look back to ur life back till this moment...
time passes so fast but u just remember it as if yesterday...
things may go up and down...
u may learn new things about urself...
u may discover new feelings...
but in reality, u r just growing...
and this is the beauty of life

khadra

khadra... a girl like me... same age... egyptian... big eyes... that's all the similarities between us
she is married, she has a 6 months old boy and she has cancer and me, i'm an engineer, i work, and i'm in good health.
i met her at the hospital for cancer. she was sitting with 3 other girls (2 of them has also cancer and are as young as she is). they were eating oranges, and talking and laughing.
that day, i entered to different rooms, met people, mostly old, who are treated also from cancer. some have family members with them, a daughter, a brother, a sister, grandchildren, others are alone.
i was touched by those girls cos they kept their spirit, they said that if they don't do that, they won't get anything except sorrow. they are full of life and hope..
how many times do we lack of this hope? how many times the world seems so dark, with no future? how many times we don't notice all the blessing we have: family who take care for us, friends who love us... no body lives in a perfect world and certainly life is not a nice dream, but at least we should realize what we have, be grateful and always remember that somewhere, someone has not all what we got.