gorilla

i'm a hairy gorilla which is quite sad, coz that means i have 2 wax twice a day

bunnies that were

Is ignorance negligence? not always. You can't be expected to know everything, to prepare for every eventuality. But our ignorance was inexcusable negligence. Is negligence ever excusable? I don't know.

We had two 1 and 1/2- month old rabbits and one adult. We didn't think it'll be too cold for them on our roof, where we built their enclosure. But the temperature's been dropping - that's what happens when winter is coming - and I think it was a cold wind blowing last night. I went to check on them today early morning before going to school. The two little bunnies were sprawled close to each other on the soil and saw-dust bedding, like they had been blown down by the cold and the wind. They probably cuddled and cuddled until they had no energy left, and then they just lay down and gave in.

The big rabbit ( Waffles ) was hopping about the roof. I like to think that he's disconsolate now, but we'll find him a few bunny friends soon inshAllah, and we'll bring them down into the house in a hutch night-times.

I buried the two bunnies in the sand pit on the way to school.

Do you want to feel like drowning? then go jogging and breathe hard in out in out iieenn ooouutt into the breeze. When you try to breathe in the breeze will push air down your throat and keep pushing and piling air up in your mouth and you can barely stop inhaling then you can hardly exhale at all because you can't blow the breeze the other way round, not even just in front of your mouth.

Do you know that I keep wanting to write a short story, but I can't imagine any story up. I have totally no idea. But I can day dream. I get more than enough of that.                I have a jet-pack on my back and goggles over my eyes and that's all and I've spread my arms like a bird - who's not flapping because he doesn't need to - and i'm all on my own in the quiet sky. There are sand dunes under me and lines of trees between them. Eyes shift focus. From a point in imaginary space to another.         I've invented a new kind of road which is entirely electromagnetic and the cars are actually like the bumper cars in theme parks. If you bump you'll just slide around and bump into a lot of other cars but that way no-one will ever get hurt in a car crash inshAllah. It's funny if you imagine someone trying to drive to work and he get's bumped from here, and spun around, and shoved from the back. It's like a wimp walking through a big bunch of bullies.

Do you wanna know what the cat did? Maybe he thought "I wish I could pluck a bird CLEAN, but I can't get a bird so I'll just shred this tissue".

Prior revision

    I wish I could stop school just for two weeks so I can catch up on all the lessons I didn't understand properly and do the homeworks which will also help me understand better inshAllah.

Progress exams are in a week inshAllah and this time I'm aiming to get top inshAllah, so any kind of comment below will be twisted to motivate me, even if it's from a lawyer who's used to playing around with words and doesn't leave any loose words to be spun and rotated the way I want, or from Ibrahim Hani who can find good demoralizing arguments but is sure to leave loop-holes.

I understand that red tea stains my teeth brown but at least it stops me dreaming and brings me back to the book whenever I have a sip. It's a wizard drink when you stir condensed milk into it.

My friend Firas told me something funny the other day. Women mostly cover themselves fully down here, so it can be a bit confusing when you're trying to look for your mum coming out the masjid or in an ice-skating ring. He was shopping with his mum and went off a while then came up to her and put his arm through hers and his head on her shoulder; in the affectionate way of a big boy who wants to feel like a kid again or who wants new clothes.

The Lady stared at him. He could feel it. Sudden embarrassment like this usually flashes on like an old TV monitor when you turn it on and it buzzes illegible black and white. Too bad Firas.

Meeting friends

yeah, first day of school and you've walked the 2 km to get there and it's just a bit sunny to do so, even though your school bag is empty. There's a lot of cars on the road and they're a bit impatient but they don't honk their horns too much because the morning is kind of too early and lazy for that. Walking by the cars and other boys walking to school and construction workers who've started probably an hour earlier reminds me of my school sandwich for some reason, and I might have forgotten it but I can get money from Abi at school so it's alright inshAllah.

Everyone's in the break yard by then and you recognise your friends in a group some way off and they spot you when you break out from the crowd. As soon as you're close enough to see each other you make eye contact with one of them. You look happily surprised like you just noticed him. Your eyebrows bounce up and you simultaneously blink both eyelids wide open.

As you approach you must look extremely delighted. This can be done by arranging your mouth so it looks like you're trying to suppress a massive smile 'cause you're so happy. Your face actually looks like you're trying to use the bathroom and you have constipation.

As soon as you cover the distance you can hug each other, which is a relief because your head is now behind his face, and you can totally relax your features if no-one is looking. Unfortunately there's probably a group of friends waiting for their turn, so you can't just do that yet. You've got to close your eyes lightly and smile a bit like it's the best feeling in the world to hug someone you haven't seen in four months and who got enough dandruff in his hair to look like a silverback gorilla.

See, it's so awkward going through all this every time you meet someone you haven't seen for a while. Unfortunately it's what my friends expect from me because I've always been like that since I had friends, and if I stop and walk in school with no visible emotion they might think I was really angry over my AS grades, or that my school sandwich had cucumber which wouldn't make me angry anyway because I forgot it at home.

reflection on my writing

Okay, so this is supposed to be a small period of self-reflection, and i'm supposed to write in this period so I can  clearly understand my reflections. Writing will slow my thoughts so I can  verify the scientific integrity of each reflection and when I read it later I'll understand myself better inshAllah.

Whenever I read some really awesome blog I so want to be able to write like that - i'm trying to scoop up any bit of concentration left after Muhammad gave Fatimah a very loud read out of cooking-safely instructions in the kitchen.

My problem with writing is I constantly asses what I've written to make sure my comparisons are accurate and will give the reader the same feeling I felt when I saw whatever it is the comparison is about. Writing also slows my thoughts down so much that they become heavy and constructed brick by brick like a building.

I want them to be like popcorn when you pour it from the frying machine into a big cup and they fall down really lightly and bounce about, and the cup doesn't feel heavy at all though it's a lot of tasty popcorn. I want reading my writing to be like eating popcorn. You don't notice you're going through it at all untill you're done.

I also get very depressed when writing because I keep going back and checking that i'm not trying to write like someone else or that i'm not being too vague or general or that i'm not writing something that sounds fake, like - just had Cinnabon Pecabon, Yaay!, its light and toasty and got roasted nuts and is very sugary, nice feeling in my stomach now - which is fake in so many ways because I don't make a big deal out of eating anything and I didn't feel so like Yaay! when I ate the Pecabon and I can't feel food in my stomach. And anyways talking about what you just ate is a trend in blogging and it's because some bloggers try to pretend they got such childish and happy lives.

It's this compulsive self-assesment which bogs me down so that I forget what I was gonna say next and get this squeezed up upset feeling in my throat and I can't focus anymore and that's why I'd stop.

playing along

erm sorry, the post before last was actually posted by my youngest sister... haha very hilarious..haaahaaa..; sorry can't stop laughing..ehm.haaha

Everything is dry

Moving makes you think, you know. Try walking round and round the dining table, or sitting in a quiet car travelling a regular speed on the highway. I got quite alot of this phenomenon in the passenger seat, 12 hours to Makkah and 12 back, except for when I was chauffeur.

You can think reflective thoughts, like there are many skid marks on the road, who made them? I wonder what happened.

You can be passive in your thoughts, like the outside view doesn't matter to your mood. On a long journey you are bound to see alot of things, which might all be almost the same as each other. Or ...there is a alot of sky over the desert and road, but you can't really stare too much at it as there's also alot of sun.

You can try to be funny. An observation that nothing is photographable. That if you happen to line up everything nicely a tree will suddenly appear, or a camel. That if you snap either of them they will probably not be there anymore because a lorry is in the way or we've already driven past them.

Or serious. What's the point of sandstorm-area signs when you'll always know if you're in a sandstorm or not.

Ok enough thinking; i'm not speaking like myself anymore. My dad bought me a phone. i'm trying to write normally but it's turning out like an essay. Anyways, it's the kind of model which requires push-ups for a text message and puts you on a permenant lookout for positive things in it, like if I didn't have this phone I wouldn't have one, maybe I can flash it about if I don't want to get mugged and at least it has a torch which you can shine in your friend's eyes if he's inspecting it too closely.

Umrah was very easy alhamdulillah. Light grey clouds were streaming over the Haram and they brougt shade and a cool breeze while were were out in the open making tawaf around the Ka'bah. The clouds were also streaming through the four minaret-corners of a massive clock which is being built as part of the King Abdul Aziz towers, and the clock is so high you can see it between the mountains some way out of Makkah.

No photos of the haram or Makkah; forgot my camera in the car in the car-park on the outskirts of the city. Haha..

                                                                  desert-side cottage

                                                              iftar by the road - on the way there

                                                      a railway station for pilgrims in Hajj time

                                                                 on the way out of Makkah

                                        we took the mountain route - Al Hada - so we're climbing now

                                                

         a disgusting representative of roadside bathrooms - it's part of a masjid, which is the usual format.

                                      hitch-hiking bedouin ? haha, no it's a dismounted truck driver.

                                                       a way more interesting view than usual

       that's a road-side restaurant. No... no, not a hospital, though it might send you to one if you eat there

                                          the Najd plateau. It means we're close to Riyadh..home.

                      To Makkah or back, this steepish incline is the first or last landmark on the road

                                                          I like it though...

sunny and colourful

Ok so how do you like it, what do you think? it looks fun and happy to me. it looks bright and colourful like my mood on a sunny day. or like a sunny day in an Enid Blyton book; when the children go for walks and laugh and have ice cream and play frisbee and skipping in the park.

Or like something I could draw and colour when the sun's coming through the class windows just before first break.

maybe

I just wanna feel what blogging's like. I've forgotten. Its been such a long time.

In grade 8 I had an eye-wateringly good English teacher, and that's not just because he brought onions to class and chucked them at students who mis-behaved. I'm not going to list his virtues here, but it's enough to know I haven't yet met a student from our grade 8 batch who doesn't think he was a great teacher.

Well, I met him the other day in Carrefour. "salam sir, how u doing?" I think he replied that he was fine, but I'm not sure. "you know, there've been rumours about your health, sir". " well, they aren't rumours..... at least the therapy isn't killing me yet ". The rumours are that Mr Isma'il has cancer.

He asked me to make Du'a for him, and I in turn ask everyone who reads this to make Du'a for his speedy and full recovery inshA'llah. A'meen.

a little two somethings...

We just finished a barbecue upstairs. There was far too much food, and that's because Muhammad, being fat and greasy, insisted on having steaks in addition to the usual quota.

Went to Khobar with Abi around 3 weeks ago. Its in the eastern province. Actually, more like tagging along. I had no business going, except that I had finished exams. Of course I deserved a holiday, if only to compensate for exam-induced forehead wavefronts. Instead of a car we went by train.

You may know , for certain, that I brought a notepad and pen along; to describe a rough journey, and all the rattling in the carriage and noisy crowd. and possibly some characters taking the train ride too, who would be peculiar to this desert country. I could write about views also, peculiar to barren monotonous deserts, which are held from cracking under the sun's heat by a spider's web of civilisation across it. I imagined all this before I left.

So we got on the train, it sounded a horn like someone with a completely blocked nose trying to unblock it, then slowly rumbled out of the station. my anticipations were methodically run over by the train along the journey, and lie somewhere along that featureless route. Not even the dates and coffee the waiter served can revive them. The windows were glazed misty white, so no photos worthwhile could be taken. The people too, they could have done more interesting things then read or fall asleep.

All together, I had a really fine time recording nothing. I got some photos and videos inside the train though, so I'll post them inshAllah. - the photos.

The hotel was nice mashAllah. The food was very nice. The weather in Khobar was actually almost England's. cold, -very cold- ,windy. The only difference between the train journey to Khobar and the journey back was that it was in the opposite direction.

and happy photos....

waiting lounge, Riyadh terminal. ...i spy...who?

no, no... not a coach, its a train. I can tell.

glazed windows.

that place outside looks really deserted. ( haha ). ( pun ).

sink in the bathroom didn't have water.

boring..... immeasurably.

Khobar corniche.

the return train. back at Riyadh terminal. Alhamdulillah.

early morning

I thought I'd do maths today, early morning, straight after Fajr, but the morning atmosphere was so beautiful I thought I must share it with you, so I wrote:

" Isa is sitting alone in the dining room, early morning, the sky has just turned from purple to blue, and the cool air comes mildly through the dining room windows, and the cockerel's voice comes in sharply, and together they make it feel like a fresh morning all to myself; as I do maths.

And the morning is awake now, as I am, and I feel we're the only two awake - there goes the cockerel again - . Some of my sisters are reading in bed, maybe Enid Blyton's books, which take you on wonderful trips through stormy and adventurous weather and events.

But she never described a morning like this, and if she did maybe I missed it and didn't catch what she meant, or she missed the desert morning and caught an England morning instead; which is just as beautiful, and usually comes with a newspaper and a nice breakfast and orange juice, or tea.

Sometimes our morning comes with a wonderful breakfast too. mostly it doesn't. So people don't really bother about the desert morning, they just sleep through this this beautiful quietness.

I got to do maths now.

Isa."

Stay up one morning by yourself, when everyone goes back to sleep, and relax and enjoy the morning, wherever you are. ( preferably with a cup of coffee ).

More photos...

Photos exhibiting that courageous and defiant spirit of marblo, which although worthy of admiration, hardly gets him anywhere when fighting The big bully, Kucing.

How did winnie the pooh un-bounce tigger? haha.

hey, what did I dooo?

makes no difference.

stage 1...

stage 2..reversible reaction.

Kucing and Marblo

I don't feel like telling you anything about them, except that they mostly behave like they're half-drunk, and they're smelly.

hello. I'm marblo.

lab trip

Last monday Mr Avais took us; the AS bio class, on our long promised trip to Aragene labs, which I think is specialised in cancer research. We'd been discussing it the day before in the classroom, mr Avais proposed we go to a resturaunt before visiting the lab, so Quraishi suggested Applebees and I suggested Fuddruckers.

Earliesh morning, when the sun was just starting to warm our hands and the school walls and the buses, and the air was already warm and still and didn't make you shudder, we trooped out in a disorderly bunch, onto the school pavement then ducking one by one into the waiting school bus, which had just finished serving as a photo background.

Having driven to exit ten, 15 minutes away in this arthritic bus - which must have been it's medical condition, the way it was vibrating - then discovered that the resturaunts were closed for one reason or another, we headed to the city centre where we were assured by a Fuddruckers manager that his branch was open.

It was in fact open, but only the family section, which wasn't very funny as hardly any of us had had breakfast, and it put our chubby bio teacher into what I think was a hunger-stimulated rage, which resulted in the unfortunate manager ingesting alot of facts which must have been very contrary to his breakfast appetite.

So........ we went straight to the labs, which was very fun, because it was very interesting. They showed us cell cultures, PCRs, ( haha, you're probably skipping this bit and missing this funny joke ) and introduced us to one basic approach to fighting leukemia. Alhamdulillah for our health.

This lab is attached to a children's hospital for cancer treatment. Inside that hospital will be children. Some may still be happy and playful, others may be bed-ridden. It is unlikely those children diagnosed with cancer will realise really what ails them, but their parents do, and probably pray for them every night. And after Allah, they rely on those doctors and researchers to find a cure for their beautiful child. For every child is beautiful. Lets pray they don't weep for their beautiful child.

Alhamdulillah for our health.