Finally, getting my new Kindle…

I assume for a frequent mover like me, there’s nothing as good as having this little piece of technology that would keep me company every where without having to make with heavy or dull to read books…I’m excited to use it and discover all the features, but they send it without a cover, now I can see the art of marketing for all accessories needed…

Researching Healthy relationships

As part of my study, we gather to analyze some aspects of researches on health, including pyshcological wellbeing. The professor presented us with a questionnaire aimed at identifying the level of stress at Early fatherhood, the questions were presented to both parents to assess changes in relationship after having children. We took 10 minutes to survey the questions, a class of mature students, all married -except me- with children. Although I’m not married but I realized the weight of the questions on whoever read them, married students looked deeply contemplative over many questions. Two females questioned if men ever felt such compassion with the family, the professor (a father of three) responded “generally we don’t, but sometimes we do”. Here are glimpses of the questions:
1. My Spouse/ Partner listens to me when I need someone to talk to
2. I can state my feelings without him/ her getting defensive
3. To what extent do you have a sene of “belonging” with your husband
4. How much do you feel you “give” to the relationship
5. How confused you are about your feelings toward your partner
6. How often do you feel angry or resentful toward your partner
7. How committed you feel towrad your partner
8. How much you feel you need your partner at this stage
9. to what extent do you feel trapped or pressured to continue in this relationship
10. How ambivalent or unsure are you about continuing in the relationship with your partner

This is one of the times that I really felt that I want to tranfer knowledge to Saudis, it would be interesting to see the results of such study back home, where people don’t choose their partners with previous knowledge and don’t deal with their emotions with honesty for many social/ economical factors.

Judging by such quaestion, I would say that a relationship can be easily identified as strong or not. The question then, is how strong a prson can be to deal with the results?…

Know your culture

Here are some of the questions presented to me to prepare an introduction by next week about my culture, for a class of American students:

1. How important is the individual in the culture vs. the group?
2. How important is hierarchy?
3. How are gender roles perceived?
4. Is change considered positive or negative?
5. What are the criteria for an individual success?
6. How is divine power viewed in relation to human effort?
7. Is the culture a high context or a low context one?
8. How do people view obligations toward one another?
9. What activities are viewed as public and what are those viewed as personal?
10. What are the cultural attitudes toward aging and elderly?
11. What is the nature of authority?
12. What is humorous?
13. How knowledge is obtained? (Are people encouraged to question things or to accept masterly wisdom?)
14. In business, is higher priority assigned to results or relationships?
15. How is uncertainty viewed?
16. Does knowledge have its limits?
17. What is the role of luck in people’s lives?

I can of course answer positively and claim the best for my culture, but I wanted to create an open floor for discussions among readers of this post, I wanted to see reactions to these questions, what do you think about our culture in terms of any/ all of those questions listed? Particularly the gender roles question…

In the middle of history, Geography & Religions…

I’m reading three books (out of thirst for such information) at one time, “The siege of Mecca”, “The geography of Bliss” and “People of the book”…

The reading experience has its effect on me, I’m deep in thought, reclusive & more introverted than ever…people are constantly asking Where are you? -as if I’m always around-… I guess this invisible thread of gloominess has reached them somehow, I even missed a deadline for an assignment for the first time…

The books deserve this attention, each one is revealing things beyond my simple presumptions of the history and the world, in particular & because of my nationality, the siege of Mecca…

This grip of extreme scholars on the decision making and shaping life style in my country is more powerful and deeper than I’ve ever thought, it doesn’t seem as a matter of time to gain a change of heart, we simply need a miracle…Of course, I can’t ignore the bias in narrating history, the book, is intended for the Western and in particular, the American reader, focusing more on the effect of Saudi government support to the extreme religious scholars on the US interests in Middle East and the Islamic countries instead of on following the effects internally in Saudi Arabia… neverthless, being a unique resource on the topic it’s valuable and a must read for anyone with an interest in the subject…

“The geography of Bliss”, on the other hand, was not supposed to make me blue, the whole idea of the book is to search for happiness or joy in different countries, the writer, being a gloomy and hard to be contented person himself, has a theory that happiness is not an autonomus invention, factors like culture and environment are needed to create such a blissed feeling…So he goes to near & far countries (including Middle East) in search for the ultimate happiness recipe, yet, until now (I’ve reached Qatar now) he didn’t find it, he did find some pieces of the puzzle, though, along the way, and if I survived the disappointment, I may reach the end of the book to put them all together, hopefully or ruin the whole concept as ethereal…The language used however, is a total joy despite the lack of actual blissed outcomes…

“people of the books” job is to dig deep into history, particularly the untold one, and get evidence on coexistence between the main three religions under periods of Islamic rulers, stating that some of the Islamic courts, were in effect open to athesists & philosophers and held debates between different schools of thoughts from all over the globe…It’s a period of time most Muslims look at with much nostalgia as it did disappear now from all courts and public life…nice & refreshing read, but heavy langauge that caused me to doze to sleep every 2 or so pages, but I’ll get the hang of it once I finished the former two…

Happy Anniversary…

It’s one Year exactly since I started this blog, I admit that Saudi jeans has motivated me at the beginning so many thanks for that…

The things that were discussed here have converged to many things and not only to my life in USA, I’ve found the many facets of life inseparable, we can’t decipher one face without the other, talks about current events have spurred reflections on religions, politics, history, ideas and cultures…

USA have added something to my searching soul, forcing me sometime to reflect on my culture and question my sanity or insanity, it has also made me appreciate what my culture holds dear and valuable, God, family and moral obligations…

Looking back, I know now that nothing is ever as hard as it seems and things can be frightening from a distance, and we have to immerse ourselves in the unkown to reach familiar zones and understanding…

And I also know that the Law of attraction is not only naiive assumptions, the idea of finishing a PhD one day that started many years ago have finally settled in excatly as I thought it would (well, not exactly but close enough)…

Presenting oneslef to the world can be a risky thing as your ideas will be thoroughly judged and not always in your favor, but the outcomes are worth it, I truely enjoy what people have left on my posts even when my point was totally missed…

And it’s true what I always read about reaching more knowledge, the more you know, the more you become confused, I’m more confused now than ever…

So Happy Valentine to all, and happy anniversary to my blog, many thanks for all of you who visited and for all who left a line…

Quoting the young minds…

After communicating Gaza conflicts -as objectively as possible- to my teenager students in Al-Iman Sunday school, I asked them what do you think the solution to the conflict between Isreali and Palestenians? some of these students are descendants of Palestenian immigrants to US, most have never been educated about the history of conflicts or the root of the problem before…Here are what they said:

A. (14 years old American-Palestenian): I don’t like to hear negativity from my family memebers about US because it supports Israel, I’m American and I want to be proud of that too, beside being A Muslim and a Palestenian, I think Palestenians should communicate well to get their land back…

B. (15 Years old Aerican Palestenian): I think Israel have killed so many Palestenians, why should Plaestenians leave their land because it’s not safe or fair? all the Jewish have to go back to where they come from instead of us having to find refuge around the globe…

C. (15 years old American Palestenian): I think all the Palestenians should do like my dad, find refuge in somewhere else, because Israel will not give in to peace and will aways find reason to continue war with us, they’re too much powerful and we’re too weak…

D. (15 Years old American): I think Palestenians should accept peace with whatever terms offered to them, any form of peace would be better than war and conflicts, it’s only children, women and elderly who suffer the most…

E. (16 years American): I think Palestenian should have some good leadership who communicate well with the rest of the world to promote their cause, they should accept settlements and keep on asking until they get their righful share…

Will they ever see peace in Palestinian side in their life time?…