Time

"Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me."

June passed by in a blur, even more frightening is that August is just around the corner. These two months have been like a dream to me, everything I ever wished for, and even those that I couldn't imagine possible.. came true.

I was caught in a whirl of time, not caring about which day of the month it is because for the first time in my life, I'm content with what I have in the real sense of the word. I'm also blessed to be surrounded by such great people that never fail to be there whenever I need and want them to.

My days felt like being in a roller-coaster.. One that you just don't want it to stop no matter what because all the ups and downs would surely lead to something so beautiful and magical eventually.

I'm forever grateful to whatever lead me to this point because when there's a change in your life, it doesn't mean it's for the worse. There's a good change and a bad one but for the time-being, I'll go on and on about how good the change I'm experiencing is.

Hope you all are having an amazing summer.

Re-post: First Book Club Read

I'm re-posting this from Omani Book Mania Check out the site for more info on this.

With the Harry Potter movies coming to an end in July 15th I thought it’d be fun to read (or re-read in the majority’s case) The Deathly Hallows book together. For those of you who are as excited as I am, you’ll enjoy re-reading again, only this time with your favourite peeps online.

So how does this work?

We’ll start reading on the 13th of June, an opening post will be put up to announce the beginning of the challenge. I’ve divided the 35 chapters in 3 weeks. Meaning: 5 chapters in 3 days. On the third day, a post by one of us will be put up reviewing what he/she thought of the chapters, asking questions for you all to interact and comment on what you’ve discovered/learned or liked in these 5 chapters. To make it easier for all of us and in order to understand the arrangement of the days and chapters, I made this calendar (Which, I hope, is clear)


How is this different?

Well for one, we’re all reading together at the same. Second, we’ll be reading and sharing our comments on the go.

This is my first time arranging a book club and without you guys, your willingness and contribution, this thing would not work. This is just an idea, I can’t go on about it without your support and input. Thus I’d really appreciate if you would tell me beforehand if you’re willing to step in and be consistent with the group. If you’ve read The Deathly Hallows before and do not intend on reading it again, do come in to add your comments, discuss and let us know your thoughts. If you’ve not read the book, then hey, it’s a fun activity during your summer!

Leave a comment if you want to participate and if you have any suggestions or ideas, don’t hesitate to e-mail me on: omanibookmania@gmail.com

Please spread this message around, re-post, share the link, tweet it, email it, for all those bookworms out there who haven’t read the book or want to re-read it again. We want to make this happen and you can help us.

Summer 2010

This is the last day of summer 2010. I worked, read, played, watched movies, read some more, traveled, fasted Ramadhan, enjoyed Eid, spent my eidiyah and most of all, met my uncle and cousins for the first time in 3 years.

In every summer, I try to achieve as much as constructive things as possible and in this particular one, I've bought and read more books than I thought I would. Putting the good memories aside, school's starting tomorrow and like every year, the only motive that keeps me going is that if it I went, I'll be getting it over with.

Eid was great too and more than that. I wish if I could sit here all day and get my heart out about what happened but I have to write for my column, get some things straight and be ready to face tomorrow. Even though I'm not one to be attached with friends, my good friend moved out already and I'm afraid I'm going to miss her epically.

Other than that, wait for the upcoming chapters of Hiatus Lane which I've scribbled down during Eid holiday and after polishing them up, they'll be up on here soon. Ciao for now.

Inside Stories

A strong demand was on the inside drama that happened during my teaching course so here it is. (for you, @GazelleR)

Most of the stories happened with two of my older students who, for some reason, couldn't understand that speaking in English was for their own good and gave me a hard time for not doing their homework the way I asked to be done.

Above all of that, they'd often ditch the lesson for some bizarre excuse together. Yes, they were the best of friends who wouldn't dare attend the class without the other and this pissed me off. She's sick but what about YOU? Umm, I don't know. So not only do I have to teach once, but repeat it twice!

Anyhow, just a week before the course came to a close, I decided to change the timings to 1-3 PM to have enough time and get back home and watch the Wold Cup games. The next thing, their moms are in rage and wonders which teacher on earth would care about the World Cup, little did they knew that I was THAT teacher. Just because you do not watch it doesn't mean others don't too.

The principal got fed up with the two of them and kicked them out as they've been giving excuses after another, showing their little interest in learning. But what came after their absence was more sickening; a parent says that she regrets sending her daughter as she didn't learn a thing. And just two weeks back, her own daughter begged me to tutor her 18 years old sister for thanawiya alamma next year. Where did that go?

Wait, what was that? How come all I heard during the lessons were praise and happiness to be here and not anywhere else...?

Turned out, the mother just said this because she was angry and her daughter would like to resume but guess what? We don't want you!

My other sophisticated students said that this was much unneeded drama wrapped up in lies and that they learned a lot and would like to be taught again next summer and I shall do just that without already-pampered girls.

China, Here I Come

You're probably wondering; Why CHINA? Well, my mom has a thing for Asian countries. You see, last holiday we went to India and the one before it to Iran, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, etc. So you kind of get the point by now.

We're the type of family that only sets its mind at the last minute so the idea of traveling to China came up a month ago and till date, I might be materialistically ready but defiantly not mentally.

Shopping wise, my mother covered practically the whole clothes side so that's done. The only thing I really worry about is: When the hell am I going to get my books? The girl has to have some light books to tag along. Last time, amazingly, The Harry Potter series provided a good company and I'm planning to have the same this time. Any recommendations?

On the other side, my uncle have been to China on April and gave us stunning reviews about the place. We all had this idea of China's products are not to be trusted, blah, blah, but there's a nice place called Guangzhou;


عرض خريطة بحجم أكبر
And I'm pretty excited about exploring the Chinese lifestyle and tradition, not to mention, their very-hard-to-catch Language. So far, I know that 'nihao' means hello/how are you? and 'xiexie' as thank you but wait till I get hold of a dictionary, I'll be speaking it fluently in no time (yeah, right!)

Another thing we've been warned about is their weird food; fried worms, cockroaches, etc..so we'll be taking some caned food with us just in case we get stuck at some point and have no idea what 'normal food' stands for in Chinese.

Till then, I'll resume my shopping & packing. What are your summer plans?

Goodbye IGCSE, Hello Summer

I can officially and finally say that I'm done with IGCSE, finals and most importantly, school! As usual, I had already preplanned how to spend summer break and I'll be sharing any updates with you soon.

Going through IGCSE used to be something that I've feared and anticipated for the past 2 years seeing as how this is an important part of my academic studies. And, it gives me great pleasure to say that there won't be any international examinations to go through again now that I finished IGCSE. Of course, as for the other private schools, there's the IB and AS level to take after IG but our school, fortunately for me, doesn't provide this. Instead, we'll be taking the Government's Bilingual system next year, which is based on Edxcell's syllabus (they haven't gone too far, have they?)

I hope I can accomplish, if not all, most of my plans on the to-do list. Both teaching and writing for Oman Observer at the same time are one of them...but I'm still struggling on multi-tasking. Funny how we assume that summer starts when school finishes only, when in fact, summer in Oman have started since March around here.

*Some of you, fellow readers, have been asking me to update this place regularly, but that just clashes with my summer plans... so I can't make any promises.

Leaving you with a brilliant piece of It's Your Day by Yiruma, because today is MY day! ;)

First Teaching Experience

Day 1
May, 30th.

One of my many summer plans is teaching English for the first time at a summer school. I was originally assigned to teach an older age group (from 12-16) but yesterday's class changed my agenda.

Ahmed: Will we have English tomorrow as well?
Me: No, it's just for today.
Ahmed: Why, did we annoy you Ms..?

How could I have said no to that? I agreed and so I'd be working twice a day, morning and noon. Turned out, I have more than 0.00% patience... I've always said that teaching kids is a sacrifice, one that I choose to take this time. At the beginning, I was afraid of losing it, especially if we're talking about 4-6 years old kids..but things are going pretty smoothly.

Kids, at this stage, are so smart and attentive and molding their skills from now on is a huge responsibility. I never imagined that teaching can be so hard but as long as you're having fun and the kids are too then that's what really matters.

As for tomorrow, I'd be meeting the older students and might start out with a small language level test. Stay tuned for later updates!

Note: This series of posts are dedicated to @toxic_honey and @developar