Happy New Year

And here I thought 2010 would be the year of many blog entries but the year is already over and the tally is only 6. The prize of most blog entries goes to 2007 with a whopping 24 entries. But of course they were all concentrated in a few months and all centered around a break up. The online chronicle I have of my life is actually very depressing—defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

I unconsciously refrain from writing about getting married because I don't want to fall in the category of has-nothing-going-for-her-but-a-man. And let's be honest here, my career isn't something to die for. Of course there was Hajj last year but contemplating the experience in my head is scary enough, I haven't been able to keep actual, documented records of it.

And so here we are: another day another pointless entry. I wish my life were a TV show and that way every problem would get resolved at the end of an episode. Or an online show with webisodes. But instead I will obsess and dwell and write poorly. Just like 2007 only less interesting.

Une Petite Paragraphes En Français

Pour apprendre le français bien je vais écrire quelque chose tous les jours. Aujourd'hui je vais écrire sur qu'est-ce-que j'ai fait toute la journée. Quand j'ai réveillé le matin, j'ai été très fatigue. Mais donc, j'ai eu besoin de travaille! IBM est trop loin mais ce n'est pas un problème parce que mon chauffeur me conduit à mon travaille tous les jours. Quand j'ai arrivé, j'ai assis à côté de mon amie Heba Amin. Elle, je la connaissais depuis nos jours de l'université et jusqu'a présent nous sommes intimes et en plus nous sommes travailler ensemble. À IBM, Heba et moi, on parle et raconte nos histoires et on travaille en peu. Quand j'ai arrivé chez moi, j'avais beaucoup de travail pour finir et j'espère que je n'ai pas parler beaucoup le matin et que j'ai travailler au lieu! Donc, j'ai fini travailler depuis quelques heures et après travailler j'ai étudié en peu de français, et c'est tout! Aujourd'hui j'ai été très ennuyeux, je n'ai pas sortir avec mon fiancé ou quelqu'un rien. J'espère que demain va être un jour plus heureux.

I Am Not a Kitten Stuck Up a Tree Somewhere

I am back to learning French, and today I tried out this sentence: Quand j'étais jeune, j'esperais que j'étais un garcon. When I was young, I used to wish I were a boy. I always felt that it was too problematic being a girl and that maybe my life could've just been so much easier if I were a boy. Now that I have grown, I often wish I were a man; it's even more problematic being a woman.

In Le Déuxieme Sexe, Simone de Beauvoir coined the controversial phrase that translates to "woman is womb". I was only introduced to that book and that phrase a few years ago and have been trying to resist it ever since. But the harder I try, the more I am convinced that even after the feminist movement and after the fight for equality, women are still always reduced to sexual beings. Even Eve Ensler's admirable attempt at empowering women through The Vagina Monologues reminded the world that women will forever be constrained by the fact that they have a vagina.

In this society and at this point in time, having a vagina unequivocally revokes any freedom thought to be your own. The simplest everyday example would be a woman's inability to walk down the street dressed in whatever she desires. It's a mundane, cyclical debate: if a woman dresses (even remotely) provocatively in the street, she risks the chance of getting harassed/assaulted/raped. Answering back or taking legal action both have proven to be of no avail. So the choices really are: a. be free; or b. get raped. There is no real blame to be put on the woman. Even the debase argument that a woman's attire is what leads to men's despicable behavior has been nullified by the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights' extensive report which showed that three-quarters of sexual harassment and assault victims are veiled. Even the act of advising a girl not to walk alone in the street is infuriating; why should I carry the burden of despicable men who carry out unlawful deeds? It reduces woman once again to nothing more than their sexuality. I have a vagina, therefore I am not free to walk.

Moments like this make me listen to Ani DiFranco's Not A Pretty Girl. As beautiful and empowering as the song may be, today I couldn't help but think that, contrary to Ani's powerful anthem, not every kitten figures out how to get down. And yet the easiest thing for a man to do is to dismiss women's issues as trivial, secondary problems that could be solved with answer as simple as not walking in the street. But a man has never transformed into a woman; has never felt the struggles, frustrations and hindrances that women feel every single day over issues small and large. And until they miraculously experience this extreme empathy, men all over the world should at least give us some of the peace of mind we deserve by not giving their irrelevant and unqualified opinion on the matter.

Take This Pink Ribbon Off My Eyes

Last night, while I was having dinner with my family in Porto Marina, was the perfect setting to have a random memory that has been pushed so far back in my mind climb its way back to the front of my brain (or whichever part of the brain the memory is located). The breeze carried the sound of a bad cover of No Doubt's Don't Speak to our table by the sea. My little sister, Sema Zaghloul, didn't recognize the slowed down version of the song and I couldn't blame her—while I was rocking out to Gwen Stefani singing about her ex-boyfriend as he kept the tune on his bass guitar, my sister's two-year-old ears couldn't possibly have memorized the melody.

Did I say I was rocking out to this song? I was lying. Actually, I wasn't lying; I'd just forgotten. The truth is that I was sitting on my dresser with Tragic Kingdom (one of my first CDs ever) in my first CD player that I had bought with my own money, with the pamphlet out so that I could read the lyrics while the song played. Also, I was crying. This is an embarrassing story to tell, like the anecdotes my mom loves to entertain my friends with about how I would bang my head on the floor if I didn't get my way or how I fell into the Charles River when I was six and had to borrow dry clothes from a boy until I got home. This is one of those stories, only no one knows it but me and right before I heard the lyric "you and me/we used to be together/every day together", even I didn't remember it.

Growing up, I loved my older sister more than life itself. (Menna Zaghloul, how long before your narcissistic tendencies compel you to Google yourself and find this?) My sister's favorite color was purple, so my favorite color was purple. My sister preferred Veronica over Betty, so I preferred Veronica over Betty. (Deep, deep down in my heart I always knew Betty was the right girl for Archie, but I never dared say that out loud.) Our relationship was not at all different than most siblings: we were the best of friends at the start of any Monopoly game, but I never hesitated to yank a fistful of hair when I'd catch her cheating or for any other everyday annoyance.

Like I said, I loved my sister more than life itself. I would yank her hair, scream out the worst profanities I know ("I will never EVER play with you ever again and you are no longer allowed to wear my sparkly headband!"), and throw as much of her clothes as I possibly could on the floor. Two minutes later, I'd be in my room sobbing because I didn't know how we would ever be able to make up.

I have always been one to appreciate the written word in any form. And from a young age I learnt that music always makes the process of scrunching up your face, letting out God-awful sounds, and feeling a salty liquid slide down your face a little more tolerable. So really it wasn't serendipity, but habit, that made me hear the lyrics to Don't Speak while taking frantic breaths in between one of the many aforementioned sobbing sessions. Nevertheless, it felt so good to hear Gwen's heartbroken voice say "I really feel/that I'm losing my best friend/I can't believe/ this could be the end".

My sisters and I have an amazingly strong bond, so it's hard to imagine ever having had to resort to violence and throwing precious dresses and shirts on the floor. Wikipedia tells me that the song came out in 1996, which is right after Menna and I endured a lonesome year of separation while I was in Massachusetts and she was in Egypt. We always attribute the torment we underwent that year as the reason for the formation of our unbreakable bond. But just like the authors of Freakonomics have taught me (and they have taught me so much!), upon closer inspection it seems that the year we spent apart couldn't have been the sole reason. That year was followed by many a-distraught days with my CD player and my No Doubt album. I guess it will just have to remain a mystery how my sisters and I transformed our regular love-hate relationship to become the best of friends. (What a lovely way to end, on such a corny note.)

The Breakfast Feast

Unlike most of my friends, Eid for me is all about family. I wake up really early in the morning for Eid prayers, then I go back home to change into my brand new Eid clothes. I head off to my grandmother (father's mother) for an early lunch with all my aunts, uncles and cousins. Then I visit my other grandmother for a second lunch and more aunts, uncles and cousins.

Eid this year was a pretty special and busy occasion for my dad's side of the family. My cousin went into labor and had a baby boy the night before Eid. My other cousin became formally unofficially engaged with her Fatha reading on the first day of Eid. And that is the story of how our family added two men to its roster. It's made me realize just how big an impact relationships and marriage have on people and on life.

It was a very joyful Eid, a Eid to remember. Yet it brought my aunt to uncontrollable tears thinking about how proud her father—who passed away when she was just a schoolgirl—must feel seeing the wife and four children he left behind blossom into a garden full of husbands and wives, children and grandchildren. My aunt is the only one of her sisters and brothers in a difficult marriage with no children, and that is her outlook on life: to find the small, dark cloud in the middle of a beautiful, silvery blue sky and weep over it. Cause and effect? Or as the authors of Freakonomics would like to put it, correlation?

Over on my mom's side, things aren't much better. Two of her sisters dove into a young, loveless and emotionally abusive marriage. Both had children. Both are divorced. Both had polar opposite reactions to the hardship. While one aunt stays vibrant and cheerful in spirit (albeit that battle was lost physically to worry lines and premature grey hair), the other is bitter, pessimistic, and takes it all out on her helpless daughter in law and her grandson. I guess it's safe to say that this is just the beginning of a very sad cycle.

I'm not trying to bring the mood down here; not all the women in my family are so unhappy. In fact, if we were to give out prizes for matrimonial bliss, the first prize would go to my parents. And yes, that sentence was intended to be every bit as corny and naïve as it sounded. My parents are a unique pair of simplicity and ambition. The stories of their strife, struggles and triumph truly evoke respect and admiration, but that (perhaps) is for another blog entry.

Seeing all this just makes me wonder: if we were to make a pie chart of all the decisions a person makes in their life and the percentage effect each one has on their entire destiny, how big is the effect of who we choose (or don't choose) to marry?


Note to all my non-existent readers: It's not that I am having doubts or cold feet about my own wedding that is six months away; I am just pondering and exploring. I am at that age where everyone around me (myself included, but that is just a happy coincidence) has entered or is entering in a sacred union. I don't want to generalize or make assumptions, but it is fairly obvious that most people (women) in Egypt feel a certain urge to secure a husband in their early twenties. It makes me wonder why they haven't hought of this pie chart before leaping into the security of companionship instead of waiting with uncertainty for the possibility of something better?

Beginning

I started learning French about a year ago. But ever since I stopped taking the courses and stopped practicing, it's started to slip away. I started writing when I was maybe fourteen and I'm worried the lack of practice is making it fall down the same drain. My friend today told me that she has made it a goal to write a blog entry everyday as a way to keep writing. So here goes. Yara Mansour, you are my inspiration.

I just clicked "i-n-s-p-i-r-a-t-i-o-n-period-enter-enter" and now my mind is drawing a blank. Of course. What is there to write about really? I feel like I have the most mundane of lives and, recently, the most mundane of writing styles. Yes, I am known to be someone who is hard on herself. I am having blog-stage fright thinking what if Yara tries to Google her name and sees my miserable attempt at writing? I know I would write better if I wasn't going to publish this online for people who know me to (possibly) read and judge me on, but that is a fear I am going to work hard to get over. Maybe it'll even help me write a short story about relationships in Cairo for a friend who wants to make a compilation book (no more names for Google in this post. One is really enough; I can't stand the pressure today but maybe someday).

Actually it's not a "maybe", I will write that short story. I have a lot of big plans for the future: write a short story for actual human beings to read, write something new every day, learn more French, get certified for two testing tools at work, get a promotion, apply for Masters programs, get married, read Quran on a daily basis. Maybe not so mundane after all? Listing it all this way makes me feel better about myself and all the more overwhelmed. I love ironies like that. And look, 325 words already; lately it's been hard getting past a single paragraph. Good progress. More tomorrow. Also, longer sentences. Good night.

P.S. While this post was written four hours into Sunday, it still feels like Saturday. This is Saturday's post and my non-existent audience can expect another one later for Sunday.

Arts + Sciences

It was the slow Sunday evening that drove me to clean out the junk that had been collecting dust on my desk for the past few years. And like any major cleaning activity, I found memories in the form of a notebook I had bought during high school and that ran out of paper sometime after my first year in college. Pages upon pages of all my thoughts for roughly three years. I picked it up and looked at the first page, thinking what a naïve, young girl I used to be. But there was something about the innocence of those words that made me keep turning the pages for an hour until I reached the culmination of ambiguity: the mind and soul of an artist trapped in a body that is forcefully intimidated into pursuing science.

In the years since I ran out of pages in that notebook, the ambiguity seemed to clear up. But the hour I spent with the hopeful dreamer I once was showed me that it's only been so fogged up I forgot how to see it. There are so many important decisions in a person's life and they all feel like major crossroads: what subjects to take in the summer? What university to go to, what major to declare? Whether to start dating a boy? When it's really time to break up? And here I am at yet another crossroad: what to do with my life?

The fear and uncertainty is crippling, to say the least. Ever since I was a kid I have always known I've wanted to be a writer. What kind of writer exactly was something that was always up for debate. Just a writer. A recorder of history and contemplation. Sometime after that notebook ran out of blank pages that dream started to fade. No, it didn't fade, it just moved farther and farther away from me. So it's still always been there. It just feels more like a distant dream now that a firm ambition. And here I am: a software tester who doesn't even blog anymore.