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Bedoor Bluemoon

Everyday writing to expose the soul

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Words

Be-sure-to-taste-your-words-before-you-spit-them-out.jpg

You do not know the strength of words until  you have heard a few things that really affected you deep inside.  It is very rare that you meet people who actually think before they speak and you wonder whether or not they are actually using their brains.  Words coming from people you barely know really don’t affect as much as words coming from people you very well cherish.

Let’s say, for example, that you put on some weight.  You go to work and a silly male coworker who is known to have constant word-vomit comes to you and says, “are you pregnant or are you just fat?” You could very easily ignore it and never think of it again.  If you were in the same situation with one of your close friends who says something less obscene such as, “you’re packing on some weight, aren’t you,” you would probably take it to heart.  Why is that?  Do you not expect to hear the truth from your friend or should she have known better.

And you know what’s worse?  Mothers.  I think it’s because we know that mothers are telling the truth so if they see a mistake in us and they can’t love us as we are then, who will?!

The reason I wrote this today isn’t to discuss whether you should or shouldn’t say the truth or how to give your opinion without hurting the recipient, it’s because I was put in a situation with someone I barely knew and she answered me in a very respectable manner I had to compare her with my once-close-friend who basically broke my heart the last time we spoke.

Alright so years ago, when we were still trying to figure out who we were and who we wanted to keep as friends and were going through different phases in our life, I had a close friend who I cared for very much.  To this day, I don’t know what falling out happened between us but we started drifting apart.  Before I realized that she no longer wished we were friends, I would call her every once in a while and see how things were.  She didn’t really put an effort into maintaining our friendship and apparently had other things on her plate.  So one day, my phone rings and it was her.  I pick up

Me: hello

Friend: Hello?  Who’s this?

Me:  Hi friend’s name. How are you

Friend: Oh sorry I called by mistake, bye.

Me: bye?

And that was literally the last thing I heard from her.  I sometimes wonder to this day why she didn’t have the decency to carry on the phone conversation for a few minutes and act like she really called me to ask how I was doing.  I replayed the conversation with so many alternatives and couldn’t understand why she didn’t taste her words before spitting them out.  It made no sense and I never called her back.

Yesterday I got a missed call from an acquaintance.  Someone I saw twice in my life and who seemed like a respectable woman.  I couldn’t find the time to call her back yesterday so I chose to call her back today when the time was right.  This was the type of relationship I had with her, one that I have to wonder if the time was right to call.  The conversation went as follows:

Me:  Hello

Acquaintance:  Hello, Bedoor

Me: How are you doing Mrs. X.  I got a missed call from you yesterday and just had the chance to call back

Acquaintance: I think I may have called you by mistake.  But it’s a great opportunity to hear your voice

Me: It’s alright

Acquaintance: (something along the lines of may we always meet in goodness).

Me: Hopefully.  Thank you, bye.

Now THAT’s a respectable woman.  After all these years, I stand by my thinking that my friend could have handled the situation differently.

Words can build sky scrapers and move mountains, words can destroy confidence and personalities, and words can definitely be thought of before being blurted out.

Think before you speak.

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Fashion Forward or Backward?

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Image found on http://kikiochii.deviantart.com/art/Fashion-Sketches-1-4-134403761

At a certain age, we are all sucked into the idea of fashion and what is fashionable vs. what is not.  I remember my first interaction with fashion was in the 7th grade when bell-bottoms were a hit.  I had to beg my mother to get me a pair of, interestingly, cotton bell-bottoms and I was so happy wearing them on the free dress day in school. Back then, I didn’t get what was fashionable through the internet but through girls at school who probably got their fashion ideas from their parents or other sources such as magazines.  At then, I never questioned the “in” girls, I just wanted to be “in”.

Or basically, not be “out”.

The next fashion statement we had in school were the Docs:  Dr. Martens shoes.  For those of you who don’t know what those shoes are, you can google them online and imagine little girls and boys wearing the boots version to school in very hot weather.  It wasn’t the prettiest sight but no-one questioned fashion.  In addition, they cost a lot of money but who was I to question them?

We grew older and realized that the “in” girls and boys weren’t as “cool” or “hot” or whatever word in currently used by this generation to show how hip a person is.  I started not caring when they were wearing skirts instead of the boring serious uniform pants I chose because I started realizing who I was.  By the way, even books were in or out of fashion so at that stage everyone was the same which really isn’t what school should be about.

Now this makes me wonder why our teachers weren’t so keen at making us understand that individualism was important and that each and every one of us is unique in a certain way?  Aren’t teachers supposed to be our mentors who would guide us into understanding life better?  What about our volleyball/basketball/soccer coaches?  Weren’t they supposed to be closer?  What about the counselor?  Shouldn’t he/she help us go through the difficult time when we were all lost teenagers?

Well, I stayed away from fashion and the cabbage patch dolls and chose to pursue other matters.  I realized that it doesn’t really matter what you wear as long as you’re fine with it and accepting it.  You won’t see me wearing something out of this world but I can say that I have always dressed decently to never look back at a photo and cringe.

You know those photos, don’t you?  The ones where you want to scream at your younger self “what are you thinking?!?!”  Well, I do have some pictures with black lipstick but never again will I make that mistake.

Benjamin Franklin said, “eat what you like, but dress for other people.”  I completely agree if people are normal and don’t come up with insane ideas.  This will probably get me hated by many fashionistas who make a living by trying on, checking out, assessing, blogging (seriously I don’t know what they do but I’m sure it’s important because who am I to disrespect their work).  Alright, yes fashion designers come up with some insane ideas sometimes but I think it’s society and the “in” girls who make it a trend.

Who is today’s fashion icon?

For example, a few years ago eyebrows were ridiculously thin that you could draw them using the eyebrow pencil.  Next, eyebrows were cut in half where the outside half would be removed because, apparently, girls only need half an eyebrow.  This was the “Chinese eyebrow” phase.  Nowadays, eyebrows are thick but shapely.  Interesting what people do to waste their time.

How much blusher is just enough?  What’s up with the makeup contouring nowadays, we never had a problem with how our faces looked without it all those years, so why do we need to look sculpted all of a sudden?

Now comes the serious part.  If you were invited to a birthday party with people you know are better dressed or more fashionably dressed than you, accessorizing and making sure all their bling was evident to the eyes of the beholder, and you were a mere guest, would you have the guts to dress the way you want?  In our society, many women are covered so if you were a covered woman and were invited to a party with uncovered women (which is very normal), would you be expected to change the way you dress?

And do you allow fashion to take up a lot of your time?  If so, why?  Does it really matter what you wear or how happy you really are?  Where is YOUR point on the spectrum of fashionable-unfashionable?  Where are you content with yourself and not ridiculed by others.  Image is important, but how important is it?

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Goldfish Don’t Eat Sliced Bread

Goldfish in an aquarium

I would like to inform you all before I start writing that I am not a snob nor do I mean, in any way, to put people down in regards to their gender, race, or any other differences.  I appreciate each and every culture and respect each and every person.  But honestly, goldfish don’t eat sliced bread.

I grew up with pets.  Not the usual cats and dogs but just some chicks, ducklings, little rabbits, and so forth.  It was a very sad day when little Babs (my younger sister’s bunny) fell ill and my brother rushed to take it to the vet just to come back empty handed and had to make up a story about Babs playing around in some far-off place.  It took us a few years before we broke the news to my sister who, weirdly, was shocked.  Apparently, she asked how he disposed of the corpse and my brother replied that he threw it in the bin.  Tsk tSkype, my sister was not happy and we held a small funeral to say goodbye to little Babs.  To this day, when we talk about Babs, my sister disapproves us not telling her the truth.

My cousin, who adores little ducklings, was capable of putting them to sleep just by petting them across their throat (can we call it the throat?) When she was younger, she mistakenly sat down on one chick and was devastated.  Now don’t ask me how she didn’t feel the poor chick squirm under her, I really don’t know.  We later found out that they used to throw chicks across the room and play catch with them. Yikes!

We used to buy chicks by the carton.  They were colored pink, purple, blue, and yellow to make them even cuter.  I always wondered whether they injected the ink in them while they were still in the egg or just dyed them later on.  So basically from a total of 40 chicks, maybe five would actually live to be chickens and roosters.  Of course, once they grow a bit we lost interest in them and they got sent away.  What a sad childhood!

I grew up and fok lowed other interests but I always liked having a pet.  A few years ago, I got myself a nice fighting fish.  It was a dark shade of blue and looked like it was flying rather than swimming in the bowl.  I had it in my office and made sure to clean the bowl everyday and feed it fish food.  Yes, fish food not sliced bread.  The fish lived for a long time until I had to go away on vacation.  I gave specific instructions on how to take care of my fish so I don’t know what went wrong.  I came back to an empty bowl and never got myself another fish.

A couple of months ago, I decided to get my son and niece some gold fish.  This was, of course, after I failed in growing lentils in a plate, but that’s another story.  So I bought three goldfish and some colored rocks to decorate the bowl.  I thought that maybe an aquarium wasn’t really needed because, come on, they’re just gold fish and aren’t really high maintenance.  We bounced away home carrying the gold fish in a small bowl and the fish food tucked away in my bag.  We were going to take care of the fish all by ourselves.

Or so we thought.

Basically, anyone and everyone passing by the bowl would have the strange and bizarre idea that the fish were hungry.  Maybe because they would open and close their mouths.  So, they would take some (by some, I mean a lot) of the fish food and contribute to the famine they are witnessing.  I would come back from work and wonder why fish food was still floating around in the bowl because, as I remember, the 4-5 flakes I gave this morning were gone by the time I went out.  Apparently, this went on throughout the day since someone decided that fish need to have three square meals a day and sometimes a few snacks.  I was frustrated that the bowl was always filled with fish food.

As you can imagine, the food which is supposed to last for a few months was finished within one.  I was genuinely worried that my fish would die so I went around asking my nieces and nephew if they were giving the fish food.  They all denied which was a shock because which adult wouldn’t know that fish don’t need three meals a day?

My mother and I decided to hide the newly bought fish food just to come back the next morning and see that the fish were fed (and thus overfed).  I was fed up!  So we changed the fish food’s hiding place again.  The issue continued.  We changed it four times just to come to the conclusion that it’s no other than our maid who is feeling sorry for the fish.

Luckily, our last hiding spot wasn’t exposed.  Our one fish (yes, two died) will actually have a chance to live.  I know that you will probably ask why we haven’t confronted our maid but you see, she’s pretty old and might take it sensitively so we thought it is better if we just hide the fish food.

Come this morning, I happily go over to say good morning to the fish and, to my surprise, I see chunks of sliced bread in the bowl.

GOLD FISH DON’T EAT SLICED BREAD!!!

(note to self: tell the maid not to feed the fish).

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Stamp Of Approval

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The man gets out of bed in the morning, gets into the shower, gets dressed, grabs breakfast, and gets himself to work. On the way, he wakes up from his sleep and realizes that he was operating on auto-pilot for the first hour in his day which makes him chuckle. He hates his morning routine and wishes sometimes that he didn’t have to get home every night. He would never operate without his senses at work, he doesn’t want to! A big grin spreads across his face as he looks forward to getting into the office and grabbing these never-ending problems by the horns! He recalls the difficult decisions he has to make and his heart skips a beat, excitement rushes through his veins as he accelerates the car trying to get to work faster.

 
Are you cringing yet? Sounds very suspicious to normal people and you know why? Because no such job exists!

 
HR professionals and psychologists have been working on trying to make jobs more interesting and enriching but are still facing issues with the human psyche. Motivation theories and job specifications are constantly changing and turning into market trends which still flop. Dealing with (Baby boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y employees in the workforce) forces us to mix and match them around, imagining boundaries that actually don’t exist and forecasting problems before they happen just to give ourselves something to do. And in the end, studying the overall organizational behavior in midst of globalization and the employees’ cultural background just forces us to lose sleep… And what for? To be able to run our organizations better.

 
Are we overthinking?

 
When I had to finish my two month internship for my degree, it was a well known fact that training in a governmental ministry is the best option for us. Now why is that? Well, it’s less work, a secure job, and good pension. You can’t get fired from a governmental job and you don’t really have to do much anyway. It’s not like you’re expected to.

 
Very interesting, I thought.

 
Well, my internship was in a private stocks/bonds company and I later chose to deny their employment offer and work in a family business (for that story, click on best decision ever). I had to deal with governmental agencies to get many papers done and, with time, I realized that employees in governmental agencies were slacking off.

 
It was a shock to my naivety.

 
Yes, it’s a generalization to say that governmental employees would get to work, have breakfast (in one office thereby leaving their offices), they would chatter about last night’s episodes and anything else worth talking about such as the stock of new clothes one of them got from Thailand and has to market, burn some incense, complain about their colleague who took a sick day off for the fifth time this week, then get a few papers done, go for prayers, have a tea break in one of the offices (thereby leaving their offices again ignoring all frustrated visitors and callers who have been calling all day), get back to their offices, act busy while calling their friends from the office phone, and finally getting ready to go. Yes, I believe that many private sector employees sees this is how a government employee spends his day.

 
Now I am an optimist and there happened to be some changes back in the early 2000s which segregated some functions which were under ministries to new governmental agencies; these were focused on specific tasks such as the labor market regulatory agency (LMRA), and the national health regulatory agency (NHRA). They were new, fresh, and had websites which actually worked and call centers which answered your calls! There is always light in the end of the tunnel.

 
Fast forward to Tuesday January 26, 2016. Our company needs to get the approval from the NHRA to enter some stocks into the country. Although the rules are new so we have to explain to our suppliers why and since when we needed quality assurance papers, we still try to be good citizens and just get the paperwork done. So by 9:30 we reach the NHRA offices with fear and terror in our eyes, praying that we forgot nothing.

 

We are greeted (by greeted I mean looked at as a living creature) by the receptionist who receives the paperwork without as much as a smile. Maybe it’s Botox. She requests samples of the products which we don’t have. We apologize for wasting her highness’s time and run away to a distant location to call the office and ask them to arrange the samples NOW! We wait, seeing people come and go: some are disappointed, others are more disappointed, only one gets through. We sigh wondering if we could be so lucky.

 
We receive the samples and get back to the receptionist who has a problem with smiling. We approach carefully, treading lightly and hoping. We give her the samples. It’s 10:40, she says,’come back tomorrow we cannot give you the stamp of approval today.’

 
‘Why?’ I ask, forgetting where I am. She looks at me like I was Oliver Twist asking for more food.

 
‘We only stamp from 9:00 to 10:30.’

 
Do you, my dear reader, understand what I am saying? They only stamp from 9:00- 10:30 am. The rest of the day there is no stamping done. None whatsoever. Maybe they staple for the next 1 1/2 hours, then next they hole punch. So what really happens to the stamp? Does it get tired? Is that why there is no more stamping after 10:30? Is it religious or can I question it?

 
Based on the stamping rule and the stamping rule only, we need to go back tomorrow and hope it’s within the stamping time.
Jumping through hoops for no reason whatsoever for an approval stamp. Do the HR know what they’re doing and is it specified in the job description?  Are we in the private sectors really overthinking our job?

 
Human Resources, you’re doing it wrong.  Stamping, you’re doing it right.

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سَكَر المثقفين

Woman_Chasing_Man

لا تأتيني، سيدي، بعقلك

ولا تكلمني بعنجهية منطقك

فلا أتحدث لغتك الصعبة

لغتي يفهمها الجميع:

عد بذاكرتك الى الماضي

تذكّر حبك والحنين

أتذكر عندما كنا نلعب

وآمالنا لا يمسها أنين؟

أتذكر عندما نجلس معا

نحلم ونبني احلام السنين؟

ماذا حدث لك؟ اخبرني!

أين ذهب الولد الوسيم؟

أين ذهبت أحلامك

أصبحتَ موسوعة (س) و(ج)

بتّ رجلا فظا تعيسا

تركت جنات ونعيم

تحدثني بغرور كأنما

العلم يوجد فقط في الصين!

قيس لم يتخرج من معهد

ولا ليلى درست ببرلين

ايا رجلا مهما محترما

أفق من سَكَر المثقفين

أفق قلبك الميت فلا

يسوى الانسان بلا معين

حبيب يموت في هواك

ولا كتب مصفوفة بالطين

حبيب يسهر على راحتك

ولا اقلام ترعد الجبين

كلماتك اجعلها رقيقة

تصل الى اذان العاشقين

اكتب شعرا، اكتب نثرا

أَخرج ما بجوفك الحزين

فرسالة حب احيانا

هدية من رب العالمين

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Let your Don be a Quixote


Image from http://quirkyberkeley.com/don-quixote-and-the-windmills/

The well known novel of Don Quixote talks about the adventures of a man who has read so many chivalric romances that he lost his sanity and decided to revive chivalry and fix the world under the name of Don Quixote. After getting himself on his ‘stud’, Don Quixote comes upon wind mills and sees them as giants that he wishes to engage in fierce and unequal combat. The novel goes on.

 

I am not a literary critic nor have I any sense or right to talk about this marvelous work of literature. I know, however, that the sad reality behind Don Quixote’s insanity lays in the comedy that is life. By ‘comedy’ I do not mean the insanity Quixote is in, but the insanity we as humans enforce upon ourselves to tailor our senses into what we think is right.

 
Going out and coming back into my flat everyday, I use the elevator with my almost-two year old son. There’s a nice long crack on the side of the mirror in the elevator and I never really saw it as more than a danger if not changed since kids in our building could very easily be playing in the elevator and a wrong move could shatter the mirror. For a few days, my son points at the crack, smiles, and says ‘rainbow’.

 
Much like Quixote’s Sancho, I couldn’t see the rainbow.

 
I couldn’t see the beauty in the crack nor could I see how it was interpreted to be one. I looked closely, there are no reflected colorful lights coming out of the mirror, it was a very normal crack. The first time my son said ‘rainbow’ I said, ‘no, it’s a crack.’ He ignored me and kept seeing the rainbow. I really hope that he continues to see rainbows in place of cracks.

 
Now the question is, why do we find it so easy to tailor our senses based on what we learned? Yes, all the tacit knowledge we have in our minds cannot be unlearned which, in the long run, takes us away from all creativity and submits us to the mold that is ‘human.’

 
Creative thinkers, artists, musicians, and theorists do not let themselves succumb to this mold and do not allow any outside constraints on their minds. We are told to ‘think outside the box’ when looking for creative answers, but the issue is the way we think. Rules and givens that make up our lives should be challenged when looking for answers. In the movie The Matrix, Neo meets some children with the oracle, one child was bending a spoon using his mind. The question is not how to bend the spoon, there is no spoon.

 
I realized that telling our children ‘no’ eats away at their creativity bit by bit and thus we are shaping them into what we deem fit. Yes discipline is important and so is the enforcing of our values but there must be a time and place where children can be children without us questioning their rainbows.  Let our Dons be Quixote’s.

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My Boy

 

Let me hold you, my boy

Let me hold you tight

Let me hold you all day

Let me hold you all night.

 
Let me hold you before

You go running around

Before you start walking

And your feet touch the ground.

 
Let me hold you before

You want to go play

For I will miss you so much

When you’re far away.

 
I held you in my womb

You were next to my heart

Giving birth to you

Was being torn apart.

 
When I hold you close

My heart you will hear

I want you in my arms

Forever, my dear.

 
Let me hold you close

Let me hold you tight

You are the only thing I did

That I know was right.

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You Want my Respect? Get Up

 

I can think of only a few things that I really hate and one of the top five is a lazy bum. Yes, a couch potato, a person who has a million reasons not to do something, someone who would rather stay at home watching tv than get up and do something with his life. I’m not sure what these ‘lazy bums’ do for a living but, giving the number of hours they are residing on the couch makes me wonder if and when they get the time to work. I’m not talking about working out (exercising), I’m talking about just doing something with their lives.

 
Something, ANYTHING!

 
Now many people I know seem to have a problem with the lack of time. It doesn’t matter to me if they (or I) have an issue with time management, I believe that at least we’re doing something. How, how, and how can the lazy bum stay at home watching tv and ordering food to be delivered to their doorstep (and sometimes to their bellies) while everyone else is outside working? Don’t they realize that life is passing by and things are happening outside? Doesn’t it matter to them that they will wake up one day and see everyone they know all grown up and gone?

 

I understand how sometimes you can be so tired that you just crash on the couch for the whole weekend. I genuinely understand that and I believe that you deserve some time to just rest and do nothing. The issue is when this becomes a life style. When 12 hours of sleep plus laying on the couch all day still isn’t enough. Seriously? Get up and do something!!

 

There are many things that need to be done. I’m pretty sure we all have similar responsibilities towards family and friends: get them done. How are your finances? Isn’t too much spare time an indicator of what you CAN do? Maybe get a second job, maybe get a first job?! Maybe you need to get a hair cut or get yourself shaved? How about your mind, ever think that maybe reading would make a difference? Maybe you can study? Get a free online course, learn a language!? Do SOMETHING, anything!! What about the list of resolutions that you keep postponing? Isn’t that somewhere to start?

 

You’re becoming a liability on someone out there. Your laundry basket is full, you’re probably in the same clothes you were in three days ago, and you can’t remember which day it is.

 

Get up.

 

People are fighting to live a better life. People work hard and put an effort. I do not respect people who choose to let their lives pass without doing something.

 

You have one shot in life, make it worthwhile.

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Where Did We All Part Ways?


When parents choose schools for their children, they have in mind a specific social circle, a specific life style, and a specific group of people to be associated with. This is also kept in mind when purchasing a house or joining a country club. Being a part of a group matters, and being a part of a chosen group matters more.

Today, I came across a very very old VHS tape of an old school concert. Yes, you read it right, it was a tape and not a CD or DVD. Gladly, it was converted to a CD so we, in the 21st century, can have access to its hidden gems. A few minutes after laughing my head off, I started feeling nostalgic. All those people on the recording were a part of my life one day. You see, our school was a fairly young school back then so we knew all the students. A smile spread across my face as I saw myself dancing and trying to make sure I don’t miss a step. I saw people who I still have contact with on Facebook and people who I really wanted to know what became of them. Many different faces with many different stories: the boy who wrote me my first love letter and my cousin dancing along her once-best-friend.

Where did we all part ways?

When did this bunch of primary school students grow into teachers and engineers and racist lunatics and fanatics? How were we able to deviate so much from the group of sweet looking children dancing and smiling at our families in the crowd? How can one person grow up to be a politician whereas another be a yoga instructor? Did our parents really think this through when they enrolled us in the nursery?

When did our peaceful competition turn to hateful differences and racial discrimination? We never cared where any of us came from, when did we part ways? Where was the crossroad in our lives? I thought that graduation is the time where we would definitely part ways but I realized that we parted ways earlier. We parted ways when we started seeing the differences. We parted ways when we realized the difference in our backgrounds and starting comparing (and contrasting) ourselves. When we were all on that stage, everything was perfect, our individual differences made sense. Our makeup was done by our music teacher who loved us all individually, our hair was styled as we saw best (by we I mean our mothers), and our dresses were, honestly, gorgeous.

We were so pure and innocent, where did we give ourselves the right to judge? When did we think we were better and when did we lose sense of the dance of life? When did we all part ways?

Where did we all part ways?

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