Been back for two days now but was busy with other stuff so had no time to update.
The trip was a blast! We didn't do any snorkeling because the red tide was still in town after nearly a month. What is the red tide you say?
""Red tide" is a common name for a phenomenon known as an algal bloom, an event in which estuarine, marine, or fresh water algae accumulate rapidly in the water coulmn, or "bloom"... Some red tides are associated with the production of natural toxins, depletion of dissolved oxygen or other harmful impacts, and are generally described as harmful algal blooms. The most conspicuous effects of red tides are the associated wildlife mortalities among marine and coastal species of fish, birds, marine mammals and other organisms."
Therefore most of the sea creatures were dead and the water was a murky green color. However we ended up doing other outdoor activities and just lazing in the sun. And ofcourse, we had to get stuck in the soft beach sand. Luckily my Baba is an expert in handling this situation and the car was unsunk in a matter of minutes.
We set up camp; three two person tents and one eight person tent, then went off exploring the beach. Here a couple of shots of the dead sea creatures I found.
When the tide was out a huge area of rocks and tidal pools unveiled to us! We just had to explore it and found some awesome creatures. Lots of live eels were slithering around us. I admit I was rather scared of them. Also saw a Mudskipper (amphibious fish) and lots of crabs.
At night the sky was so full of stars! I always get mesmerized by it. Since it was so dark at night and also rather cold, we each had a little map and sweater and jacket as demonstrated by my brother here (that's him actually posing)
We had built a bonfire that warmed us up while we sat together around the camping table and talked and listened to music. Here is a vid oh my little brother busting some moves.
A shot of the sunrise, beach hopscotch and a couple of shot of the gang.
I slept at 1 am and just woke up (7.20 am) to the voice of my Baba telling me to get ready. I was supposed to be up by 7 am, but I kinda rolled over and went back to sleep again in my comfertable Queen bed.
I feel so groggy and snappy and my voice is all husky and manly. I need my 8 hours of sleep or else I am not a happy camper. Not a good start to a camping trip I have been looking forward to for the past week xD
We're going to an area called Seefa, which is about an hour's drive away from the capital Muscat, and camp for two nights. It's gonna be the first camping trip for my 6 year old sister and 5 year old brother, so they are pretty darn excited. I can't believe my brother is already up at this hour of the morning. It would take a nucleur bomb to wake him up during normal school days at such an hour =/ He's already downstairs, all dressed eating his Bee'9 (Egg).
I haven't been camping in three long years! We're gonna do a bit of fishing as well as snorkelling. I hope the beach we will camp on will have some caves to explore.
Packed lots of warm clothes, since the nights are here are pretty chilly, as well as a huge can of mosquito repellant as it is the season for them at the moment.
Ok I better go take a shower and wake myself up a bit. Can't risk the danger of hearing Baba yelling my name up the stairs since that would mean I am late and will be in for a lecture on punctuality.
Back in 2 nights, if I dont get eaten by a shark or stung to death by a jelly fish =D
I woke up in the morning four days later and immediately ran into the toilet to throw up. I felt terrible. I was my first day in a new school in a whole other country. Plus, I was just starting highschool. Woe is me.
I looked at myself in the mirror and noticed some bags forming under my eyes. I sighed, splashed some water on my face, brushed my teeth and started to dress up for school. I hardly slept in the night. I had many nightmares, and always woke up jerkily after each one. I think I got out of bed four times just to make sure that I had everything ready and that nothing had mysteriously disappeared; clothes, accessories, books and school shoes. I looked through every single item one more time and, happy that everything seemed to be in order, dressed up.
I finally went down to have breakfast after another two emergency trips to the toilet. I slouched down in my chair and started at the bowl of cereal infront of me, whatever left of last night's dinner threatening to come up. I tried to concentrate on something else, looking around our newly decorated kitchen.
The last three days have been very busy. We went to the local mall and spent an entire day looking through all the shops, especially the furniture one. I have chosen the color green as the theme for my new bedroom and so far managed to replace the brown curtains with pale green ones, in addition to purchasing lime green wall paper (which I am yet to cover my walls with). I also bought appropriate clothing, as winter was looming close and all I had with me were light summer clothes.
I was considering purchasing more furniture to fill in all the empty corners of my bedroom, when the entrance of my brother, whom I noticed had a very off glum expression on his face, interrupted my thoughts.
"Geez" I thought to myself "Why won't he just lighten up a bit?"
Both of our parents accompanied us as it was our first day in a brand new school. The headmaster, Mr. Carter, welcomes us graciously, with as many a bow, a wave and a smile that I was beginning to think that he must have mistaken us for the royal family. He took us on a short tour around the school, showing us all the trophies and awards the school has won in its past 23 years.
We took Hammed first to his class. the classroom sounded very noisy from the outside, but once Mr. Carter namged the door open all turned silent. A rather shaken dark haired lady greeted us, Hammed's homeroom teacher. She beckoned him into the classroom with an encouraging smile. Hammed looked rather pale and was chewing his bottom lip nervously as he entered the classroom. I heard him mutter under his breath "Be cool like a fish in a pool".
I smiled. This was one of the mottoes my father lived by and always used it whenever my mother or I were panicking. I tried to get a glance of the students but my parent's large bodies blocked it from sight. My mother was waving and blowing kisses frantically at Hammed. Mr. Carter finally shut the door after a few words to the students about welcoming newcomers. I managed to catch a glimpse of Hammed through the classroom door's glass window. His face was buried in his left hand and the tops of his ears were red. Poor guy, my parents made a real show of embarrassing him.
I was grinning while we walked through the school, thinking about how humiliated my brother must be feeling, when we suddenly came to a halt. I looked around my parent's back to see what was the hold up.
Suddenly, a jolt went though my body and I came crashing down to earth with a sinking feeling in the pit of stomach. I felt sick and wanted to throw up again.
They had a hard time in the airport. We were required to open our entire luggage so security guards could search through them, even though they had been through the luggage X-ray twice. After that each member of my family was individually searched. They even searched me while I was dozing on the bench. My father had the hardest time as he was required to take his coat off, empty all his pockets and even take his shoes and socks off. Finally, the guards were convinced that we were free of whatever they were looking for and they let us go. None of the other passengers were treated in such a manner.
The security search caused us so much delay the rental cab my father ordered was nowhere in sight when we stepped out of the airport's arrival terminal. My father searched and searched for another taxi to take us to our new home but none were willing. However, after forty minutes of inquiring one of the drivers finally agreed but only if we payed extra.
That was all the insight I got, as my brother looked down at the grass deep in thought again. At that particular moment I did not understand why he was so upset. I guessed he was just ticked off because of the holdup the security guards caused. As the days passed in our new foreign "home", I slowly came to realize the real reason for why he was so upset.
I've been much laid down by the continous massive rape attacks from my university doctors. As much as I would love to complain about it, it would just let me be off my slack off mood now. I'm at the moment working on a book that would take so long since there is no time for my own butt to scratch and a poem that I will be sharing here and on my Deviantart.
I've been advancing in guitar playing with the encouragment of a friend who shares my taste and since we are almost daily together because he is taking the same major as me and is having the same classes with me we finall decided to do something stupid or just have fun the way we want, after all lectures were off we went to this room called audio club in our campus that includes very nice instrument and it was the first time I ever played 'Oud' there, but kind of funny since I was making a death metal riff on it. Spending time there almost making fun of every human we encountered today especially the doctors, we heartly took both electric guitars and started playing and for less than an hour we made something totally messed up and funny. As my friend was practicing it, I inpluged a mic into the huge amplifier and started saying arabic stuff with black metal vocals that made us die from stupidity and how bored we are, but my friend wanted to laugh more so he told me to do these vocals and we both play the thing we came up with which turned out to be a very 'lame' 1:13 minutes track to the point that we kept replaying it over and over.
Sumarian Mythology:
Seldom do I remember being into mythologies like I do now, I'm into every kind of it but at the very moment i'm into something close to my culture and maybe something that have affected my ancient hebrew people for a way or other, Sumarian Mythology. Its endless and its very interesting. One of the things very well known about this is 'Apkallu' or Abgal(English). They are spirits who supposdly long lived before the 'flood'. Guardians and they were often represented as winged men and sometimes having an eagle head instead of human's. They were 7 or 8 and they either were poets to write about the epics of Erra and Gilgamesh or Ministers to the god Ea. They are represented as Demi-Gods.
Adapa, the very first apkalu, was a mortal from a godly heritage, a son of Enki , the god of wisdom , who brought the arts of civilization to that city. He broke the wings of Ninlil the South Wind, who had overturned his fishing boat, and was called to account before Anu. Ea, his patron god, warned him to apologize for what he did, but not to share the food or drink while he was in heaven, as it would be the food of death. Anu, impressed by Adapa's sincerity, offered instead the food of immortality, but Adapa heeded Ea's advice, refused, and thus missed the chance for immortality. Adapa is often identified as advisor to the mythical first (antediluvian) king of Eridu, Alulim. In addition to his advisory duties, he served as a priest , and upon his death took his place among the Seven Sages (Apkallū). He was portrayed as a man wearing the skin of a fish.
I was so excited about the prospect of moving. I've never moved houses in my entire life, let alone countries. I tried to smuggle out all my belongings but my mother caught me red handed. I was given three large boxes to fill in with pretty much my life, and I made sure they were used up to their maximum capacity. The hardest thing of all was leaving my friends. I felt tears threatening to form in my eyes when we had to say farewell at our last get together. I really wished that my friends were like my belongings, and that I could pack them and take them wherever I desire with me.
Come flight day and all my unhappy thoughts were wiped clean out of my mind. I was practically brainwashed with excitement, It was a really long journey; in the range of eleven hours. I couldn't sleep due to all the butterflies that fluttered in my stomach. Eventually all the fluttering and queasy feelings must have drove me to exhaustion for I finally nodded off during the last hour of flight on my brother's shoulder.
I woke up the next morning to find myself in a strange little room. It was bare except for the bed I was lying on, a wardrobe and ugly brown curtains. I made a mental note of getting rid of the ugly curtains. I walked down the stairs and heared some voices down the hall at the bottom of the staircase. I found my family sitting around a square dinning table, having eggs and toast. I joined them and for a while we discussed how were to decorate the house. I then asked my father when was I due to start school. My brother and I were to attend our new school four days later. We would have to walk instead of being dropped off in a car. This was a shock to me as back home we were always dropped off and picked up from school with a car.
My father showed us the way to school in the afternoon. It was a short five mintues stroll, but we had to walk up a hill which was very tiring. By the time we reached the top we were huffing and puffing so badly we had to rest a little on the grass. I looked around and smiled. Everything was so green, unlike back home. There were snails everywhere! The creatures amazed me, for the only one I saw was a tiny midget when I was about six years old. The snails here were so big! I looked up at my brother to tell him this, but I stopped dead. He had his serious expression on and I knew better than to interrupt his chain of throughts. However, I mustered up the courage to do so this time, and thankfully didn't get a swear word for an answer. I asked what was bothering him so much, as everything felt perfect and good to me. Hammed filled me in on the details of the rest of our journey adter I've fallen asleep.
I woke up with a start and instantly groped for the alarm clock on my bedside table. I finally located it, switched it off and turned stiffly in bed to face my bedroom window. I pulled th pale green curtains apart, and a world enveloped in warm golden sunshine opened up before me. I yawned, stretched my body and sat on my bed, watching the birds chirp and bask in the warm glow. I watched a group of infants holding unto each other's hands with smling faces behind their supervising adult. The lollypop lady holds up the bright yellow stop sign for the cars to wait as the infants walk across the street. Everything outside looked so peaceful and perfect; too bad this wasn't how I felt inside me.
My name is Dana, and for the past few months life hasn't been good to me. It all started when we moved away from home to a foreign country. That was about a year ago. I'm twelve and my older brother, Hammed, is fifteen. My father is a surgical doctor. He deals with the removal of tumors and other alien bodies mostly around the abdomen area. My mother does not work, and spends most of her time with chores around the house.
Being a doctor, my Father wished to broaden his specalizing horizon, therefore choosing a universty in a foreign country as his fortress of education. My mother wasn't thrilled about moving away from our home. Then again, she wasn't keen either on the idea of spending the next three years of her life without my father. She relelnted in the end, but I'm pretty sure that deep down inside her she was glad that she hadn't conquered this argument. So naturally my brother and I just tagged along, since we were definatly not going to be left behind.
It's been three hours now. My whole family (except for one sister) came to pick me up from the airport. I was pleasantly suprised as each kept popping up from the background (they wandered away to the food court coz I was kinda late walking out due to luggage being late as usual). Biggest surprise is seeing my sister in a cast xD She broke her foot poor thing. And my little brother just had to do a powerslide on the floor when running up to me to give me a hug, grabbing ost of the attention.
Got loads of pressies for everyone from Thailand, it felt good making them all happy. I remember, when I was young, being estatic when my Mom or Dad got me something from their travels around the globe. That hasn't changed much lol.
Just took a lovely shower, and now am sitting on my bed in my lovely bedroom facing my black Sakura Tree. Time to sleep. Night night ^_^
I swear if McCain had gotten elected with that wacky VP of his Palin, I would lose all faith in the American society.
Let's just hope the next four years will be good, after all President of USA = President of the world. Am hoping for the best, but dont have 100% confidence in how good of a President Obama will be.
History was freaking made today, first Colored president of the USA! One of the biggest turn out of voters as well! And people all over the globe were able to keep track of everything that was happening thanks to Web 2.0!
Congrats to Obama and to the USA ^_^ I enjoyed watching the elections on CNN as well as keeping track with all the people I am following on Twitter. The Holograms on CNN that were used for interviews were BEYOND THE WORD COOL!
And now I better get back to studying for my logic exam. I've been following the damn election instead xD It was bloody nail biter!!!
Ahhhh...... Ahhhhh....... I'm so tired and I just changed and just wish at this very moment to sleep in a jacuzzi and never wake up. Alot of work in a very short time.. is not so good, you figured out that this post is not something specific eh? smart aren't we ! I'm just here to post some random stuff and to release some of my stress, because if you overstress u will get nothing and if you over relax you will get nothing too (OOOOOH!)
back to Tool ... this line is I love the most:
Rob the grave to snow the cradle Then burn the evidence down Soapbox, house of cards and glass So don't go tossin' your stones around
You must have been high You must have been high
it rang a bell in my head and made me smile. So yup what I need to do after this... I will assemble my new desk, fix my torrent and be buried by books
Random thoughts:
Why everything that is super delicious unhealthy, while everything is healthy is not delicious? WHY ! WHY YOU MOFO D_@#)%)#I&_#(*^@_#%
LOLOLOL! I shell haz upside down as a lunch ! (translation: A food that is called that in palestine, its so delicious that it will finish now :). did I mention that I'm dizzy?).
