Vision cleared

Dear blog,
There are a lot of times I feel I need to let out my feelings but I just don't know where. You have served me very well over the years, and lately I've felt the need to vent out here but didn't do it. I am like that. I plan things in my head, but they take ages to happen.
I can't believe the things that are happening, the things being said. I try to do and say the right things, yet when I know I'm right I don't say anything. It's mostly because people have changed, or I've only begun now to understand them better. Most of the people around me stick to their point of view and they listen to argue back not to actually understand what you're saying.
It's frustrating to be in such a position. Am I seeing life the way it is?

Everybody can make a difference and change the world. If we disagree with the way our society works, then why live up with it? Why can't we try to change it?
I was shocked when I was told that there was no point in trying to change people's mind about something and going against the unwritten rules of conduct, because my life would be ruined in the process, so why can't I just live with it?
I tried to argue miserably over the fact that we can change because you're supposed to be the change you want to see in the world according to Gandhi. Yet people won't see it that way.

Why do we live by people's rules and not our own? And you ask what's wrong with our societies?! It's the state of comforness we reached, how we only complain and do nothing to change it.
How pathetic!

With hope,
Noor

Haven't Met You Yet

Dear Readers,
I thought I'd dedicate this feel-good song to all of you.
So sit back, and enjoy the music!




I love you, Bublé!

Live...

While I waited for any friend to come online, and as I fought the urge to play a silly facebook game that my brother doesn't even understand and asks laughingly 'Is that it? No explosions?', I needed to take a step back to assess and then, hopefully, be able to take a step forward.

I turn uneasily in my bed at night, thinking of everything all at once, and trying to decide. I say to myself, now you can think clearly; what do you want to do? I try to push back the answer that comes first, it says 'Save The World'. As I push it back I wonder why, it's what I truly want to do. I may have a narrow-minded understanding of what that means but I'm ready to be converted to any way that can accomplish that goal.
Results are out, what comes next is what matters. Where and what? How should I know? I guess I should, and I'm trying to convince myself of certain majors, I'm sounding dramatic using "convincing". I, too, have expectations of myself, and I need to see them come true. I always thought when my time comes I'll just know what to do, or they'll open up a major that is just right for me.Neither happened. I'm praying I'll choose right though!

Let's enjoy the moment.
Listen to loud music; and screw up the lyrics! :D

I always thought life happened, and would happen to me too when I grew up. It seemed that way on tv. I've learned that you have to make it happen, and it's probably the hardest thing ever.
To live.... happily! It's a choice you make.
So will you choose the right thing? You're worth it. (Talk about pep talk.)

راوية: الأشياء ليست في أماكنها

أعلنت مدونة "أكثر من حياة" على فرصة الحصول على نسخة موقعة من رواية الأشياء ليست في أماكنها للكاتبة هدى الجهوري. يمكنكم الدخول في السحب للحصول على نسخة هنا.
مبادرة جميلة جداً!

Quotes

"Thus we never see the true State of our Condition, till it is illustrated to us by its Contraries; nor know how to value what we enjoy, but by the want of it."
Page 72
Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
Penguin Popular classics


"How good one feels when one is full - how satisfied with ourselves and with the world! People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well, and is cheaper, and more easily obtained. One feels so forgiving and generous after a substantial and well-digested meal - so noble-minded, so kindly-hearted."
Page 87
Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) - Jerome K. Jerome
Wordsworth Classics

Faith

We have plants in our flat now. I water them everyday, twice.
They're not ours. They're for my dad's friend, and we're looking after them while he's away. It's great. Though the sad thing is, we sometimes leave the house for a day or two and there's no one to water them. One of them is already dead, or very near that because it's seriously dry. I felt really sorry for it. The others aren't very much better, it's because of the weather here. It's very very hot.

I asked my mom why didn't we have plants? She explained that she tried keeping some a few years back but they wouldn't stay alive, besides we don't have much room in our home for them. I always thought I'd have a garden in my house, and I wouldn't dwell much on who would tend it. It demands time and effort. Now I'm thinking a few planets on the balcony wouldn't be so bad. The weather needs to be appropriate.

However, I'm not writing to express my future wishes for keeping a garden. I need to think out loud, because I've been thinking a lot these days and I don't think it's very healthy living inside my head. I've been reading, I don't know if it's the books I'm reading or it's me, but I'm not relating to books now, I'm reading for the sake of reading and I don't like that. I've been watching online most of the time I'm awake, and that has made me uncomfortable about the way I'm spending my Summer. I try to talk, but I have no idea what to say or how to say it. I'm thinking about my average, majors, universities and life after this Summer. And I'm also thinking about getting a BlackBerry.
I always hated my lack of confidence in the decisions I make, I hate the state of indecisiveness I'm in, and I hate how big a deal I'm making everything look like because it may just happen to be normal. Perhaps it's the right state of being for me right now, but I hate the state of unproductiveness I'm in. I need to read books, be able to help around in the house, watch movies, learn how to drive, and not spend the day inside of my head thinking and thinking of what I should be doing. I need to simply think and act.
I think it's because I'm nervous about my future, and that's normal, and because last year not a day went to waste without a humongous guilt. This is the transition needed to get back to leading a normal life. So this needs to come out.

I have faith in myself, and I need to start acting upon it.
Let's act upon on!

At the Mall

It's always fun to go to the mall. You're on your way with hopes you'll find something to buy, you'll eat that ice-cream you've been craving for so long, get that book you always wanted to read, and much more.
You arrive. You look around. You think there are many pieces worth considering, yet when you look closely you find nothing. You go eat dinner and never have that ice-cream. You see the book but think it's always there and can be bought another time. You leave the mall with thoughts of coming again in a week to filfull the plans you had in the first place.

The people are another thing. I always think of the mall as a place where you can see pretty much everyone. I don't mind people, I love watching them sometimes. I just hate people with certain airs they give themselves. I always thought people should be themselves.
I almost always catch myself laughing at something my sister is saying when we're walking at the mall, and I'd look around and there's a guy looking at me who may think I'm smiling at him. I'd hate that. I would seriously get annoyed by it before, but now I don't care! (:

So I hope this pointless post cheered you up a bit. And next time I'm at the mall, which would be tomorrow I think, I will have that Buskin Robbins ice-cream. Yes, I will!

Middlemarch - George Eliot

It has happened a few times, that when I finished a book I'd have the feeling that I should hug it dearly so that we can part so. Middlemarch gave that feeling to me like no other book did. It was everything I hope a classic should give and so much more.
The characters are divine. I can't even begin to understand the talent Eliot had to write such a novel. Middlemarch has everything; love, despair, hope, family, marriage and friendship.
It is a long book, and having been written so beautifully it'll take you to places you've never been to with a book before. At least, it was the case with me. I loved the characters, and I'd like to dwell on them for a moment. Everyone plays a part in Middlemarch and although throughout the book I changed my liking between characters, one character remained with me. This was Dorothea.
She is a young woman with high hopes for herself to make the world better for others. Life stands in her way in so many trying hours, yet her character stands firm. Of course most of us have the notion of changing the world, going to forsaken places to give a hand. This is all very noble, yet these opportunities never come easy. We wait for them but they never come. We think perhaps this is not the way such things happen, that we must somehow try to reach out and look for such opportunities ourselves, the thought lingers yet is seldom turned into action.
Dorothea has notions of helping others, yet she has real notions. She plans for them, and helps those around her. It was part of the reason why I loved her character. She was very simple and honest. Something I always wanted to be. She suffers grief, yet it doesn't hinder her from doing good. And she has a clear vision of what is right and wrong, and believes in humanity.
This all may seem like a perfect character, too good to be found on earth, yet the realness of Dorothea makes her character even more appealing. I found the attempt to draw such a character very genuine. Eliot, as far as I'm concerned, succeed very well with her characters, and I soon found myself greatly attached to most of them despite their flaws.
It has been a while that a novel was interesting enough for me to stay awake to finish it. I knew it had to be finished, I was struggling with emotions as I turned the last few pages. And I have to admit that I was crying. Tears rolled down my face easily, perhaps it was because of the hopelessness some characters were in, the hope others entertained, and the sad thought that I must part with this novel that has become very dear to me.

There were many lines I loved, and these are the few I took the time to write down:

"We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our hurts -- not to hurt others."
Page 51

"One can begin so many things with a new person! – even begin to be a better man."
Page 102

""He only feels confident that you will do it," said Dorothea, in a voice as clear and unhesitating as that of a young chorister chanting a credo, "because you mean to enter Parliament as a member who cares for the improvement of the people, and one of the first things to be made better is the state of the land and the laborers. Think of Kit Downes, uncle, who lives with his wife and seven children in a house with one sitting room and one bedroom hardly larger than this table!--and those poor Dagleys, in their tumble-down farmhouse, where they live in the back kitchen and leave the other rooms to the rats! That is one reason why I did not like the pictures here, dear uncle--which you think me stupid about. I used to come from the village with all that dirt and coarse ugliness like a pain within me, and the simpering pictures in the drawing-room seemed to me like a wicked attempt to find delight in what is false, while we don't mind how hard the truth is for the neighbors outside our walls. I think we have no right to come forward and urge wider changes for good, until we have tried to alter the evils which lie under our own hands."
Page 321

"That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil--widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower."
Page 323

At the end I have to thank my friend Mohammed who encouraged me to read for George Eliot. This is just the kind of book that makes you believe in yourself and the things you can do for others. I really can't say anything more, for I'm afraid I've already said too much already but Middlemarch is absolutely worth reading.

Sing and Read

My nephew is the cutest ever! Last night I sang 'The Itsy Bitsy Spider' about 10 times, with dancing and everytime he would clap for my performance! Imagine that. I was ecstatic and I'd do it again, and he's smiling and clapping.
I just love him!

Right now I'm fighting the urge to read, because house chores are always there. My mom never asks us to do anything, specially this year so now I'm trying to make up for that, doing the best I can to leave the book.
It's been so long since I felt the urge to actually keep on reading, and it just feels like heaven. Is there anything better than reading?! I think not.

Colours of life

Exams ended. They were bound to end at some point, but it seemed so far yet it ended quicker than expected. I don't think that makes any sense.
I don't wish to dwell on the exams themselves, they went well thank God. I have so many Summer plans that if I get half of them done, I'd be very happy.

Anyways, I have so much to say! First today we went to buy books! Not just any books. There's this charity that sells used books. These books are donated. So you get them by such a cheap price. You can buy 3 for 1 Rial (1 Rial is about 2.5 $), so we got 6 books. They were mostly English books I didn't know, but there were some nice ones.
Yesterday I counted the books I have unread, and they were about 43. I was amazed, I didn't think they were so many but this makes me even more motivated to read and read!
Today we did some shopping as well. It's been so long since I shopped, and there tons of things I need to get but I am in no hurry. This feeling of having time is just very foreign at this moment, but I am getting used to it.
Time has to be spent wisely, our room needs major tidying up. Papers are all over the place, and we have people waiting to get our papers and notebooks for next year that I already feel sorry for them. It's such a trial, and I just think it shouldn't be like that!
I'm trying to catch up with everyone right now, but again- there's time. It's just that I can't shake off the feeling that things have to be done now. Like finishing this post, which has been building up in my head for a while. I'm surprised to find myself no longer thinking in terms of posts, tweets or status updates. Have you experienced that? It's just wrong for these social networking sites to make us so, and very wrong of us to go with the flow.
So let the Summer begin for I am ready for it.
I will leave you now to change my nail polish from blue, to black! As I said, I miss doing these little things to myself! Like read because I want to, not because I have to.
Expect more posts coming up.
Love