ROBERT

Robert.
This name came across my mind today. Robert is one of the few people I met in my life and left a mark. In my school we used to go on camps in the summer. Those camps were really so effective in our lives (we RCG girls).

Attending week-long camps at such an early age as 4th primary or 5th all the way up to high school, this helped us a lot in building our characters. Each camp had a theme, or main idea, and they would invite significant people or celebrities to join our camp & lecture us about the theme. Since our school is a former American college, we had contacts abroad. So back to Robert: he was a Scottish art teacher who attended with us the camp of my 1st preparatory summer.

Robert was a person that no one can help but admire. In a simple word, he was fun. He had a very charming looks, tall, white, golden long hair, very smart features and athletic body. He was round 24 years old then, and had plans for a 100 years to come.

He was talented also in arts, in fact he was in charge of ALL our art activities through out the week. Not art only but also our games & tally-matches. Till here he might be an over average guy but still just like any guy. Well, that wasn't all. He was also a very close to God person. He preached us about God, and how he can love us all equally and unconditionally. He taught us about love. Can you imagine such an attractive guy like that teaching teenage girls about love! Well let me tell you that we all dealt so easily with him and without feeling any awkwardness.

In short we had so much fun this year with Robert, that we already started talking with him about the next years camp & how we wanted him to come again. He said he will come most probably.

So a year passed, it was 2nd preparatory summer and we all made reservations in the camp. I was wondering if Robert's gonna come. Then when I was on the phone with a friend of mine gossiping about the upcoming camp, I asked her if she knew if Robert was coming. She stopped talking for 1/2 a minute. I was so surprised! What's wrong?

Then she told me.
Robert, that vibrant, charming man, that beautiful person who taught us about love & life, was gone!
He drowned in the sea while he was swimming.
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I knew the next camp won't be as good as the last one. We all missed Robert, but we never really talked about him. I'll never forget Robert, and how he taught me that there is never anything wrong in being cool, life-lover, and being close to God and righteous. He taught me that arts are the best way to express yourself. He was too good to be true. And like a comet, he appeared so shiningly in my life, but for a very little time.

God Bless you Robert.

أنا كنت فين؟

أنا كنت فين؟

كانت ليلو ترقد على فراشها طوال الأسبوع الماضى. الفراش الذى أصبح فراش مرض!! ترقد وحيدة، فى غرفة مظلمة، لا تستطيع فتح عينيها من كثرة........... لا لا لا بلاش الجو ده

أنا تقريباً خفيت، مش لازم بقى جو الكآبة دهأنا كنت عيانة فعلاً لمدة أسبوع - أسبوع عصييييب جداً، تصوروا الحاجات البسيطة جداً زى المشى، الوقوف والكلام! الحاجات دى ماكنتش قادرة أعملها... الرؤية كمان كانت مستحيلة، الصورة بتجرى قدام عينى زى قناة تليفزيون مش مظبوطة - قلت الحقونى، شوفوا مالى، عمك الدوك قال كلمته: التهاب حاد فى الأذن الداخلية (الداخلية مش الوسطى - كل الناس فاكرة انها الوسطى!!) ولابد من الراحة لتامة لمدة اسبوع فى السرير وفى اوضة ضلمة! مع عدم الحركة اطلاقاً إلا للشديد القوى... اللى هو الحمام ولامؤخاذة...حتى ده كنت بتسند لغاية ما أوصله

وبدأت أتعس أيامى فى 2006! دا إحنا لسه بنقول يا هادى.... أول 3 أيام كانت حالتى تمام زى الجثة! مرميه طول النهار على السرير "بلا حراك" ... حلوة بلا حراك دى ... النور مطفى والتليفزيون مقفول لأنى مش قادرة أتابعه، الممثلين بيجروا ويترعشوا!!! وكل كام ساعة أسف شوية أدوية وأرجع لدور الجثة تانى، أو أقوم نص قومة فى السرير عشان آكل ومعدتى توجعنى وأرجع أرقد تانى... ماهو الالتهاب ده بيجيب غثيان كمان ومعدتى ماكنتش طايقة حاجةبعد يومين، الفرق بين الليل والنهار: راح.... الخط الفاصل بين النوم واليقظة: بخ، اتمحى... ماما تصحينى عشان الدوا أسألها هو النهاردة ايه؟ تقوللى الخميس، أقولها: الصبح ولا باليل؟!! وقبل ماسمع الاجابة أكون رحت فى النوم... فى أول يوم قال ايه كنت قلقانة لحسن ماقدرش أروح الشغل تانى يوم! تانى يوم صحيت لقيت نفسى مش قادرة أقوم مالسرير أصلاً!! ويوم يجر يوم لما عدى أسبوع... أصلا بعد تالت يوم أنا نسيت أنا مين وباشتغل ايه ولا فين

التحسن بدأ فى خامس يوم.. بدأت أعرف أقعد عدلة فى السرير... وأقدر أمشى للحمام من غير ما أقع... شوفوا حاجات عادية بنعملها كل يوم ببساطة، ممكن تبقى عزيزة قوى فى المرض! الحمد لله أنا دلوقتى خفيت، وزى كل مرة أرقد فى السرير، أقوم وأنا حاسة فعلاً ان الصحة دى أكبر نعمه عندنا، من غيرها مش حانبقى عايشين أصلاً... يا رب ما حد يجرب الالتهاب القاتل ده أبداً... خدوا بالكو ودفوا نفسكو ومتعملوش طرازانات وتلبسوا خفيف، ومحبكش الخروج فى السقعة والمطر يعنى!! طبعاً النصايح دى ليا أنا أولكم! هو جابلى الكافية الا الحركات دى

المهم، الحمدلله ليلو عادت بسلام... أوانها لسه ماجاش ... لازال فى العمر حبه

BEAUTY

Can you see the beauty?
It's everywhere around us.
You will see it in every living thing.
You will see it in everything made by man, with love.
It's not the loud, sharp beauty.
It's the kind that makes you smile, and gives you warmth of the heart.

Try to look to things differently from now on.
Search for that beauty inside everyone, everything and in every situation.
Save the time of anger and criticizm.
Instead, look at the bright sides.
When you discover the brightness, only then you can bear the darkness.

Feb. 17th, 2001.

Let them fly..

Let me say my words, and may anyone hear them.
Let them fly all over the world, and go as far as they can.
Hoping they would touch someone, I let them go free.
Hear me, listen to me.
Young or old, woman or a man.
May someone get any use of what I say,
for up till now they are paper & ink.
Don't hesitate to hear it all, I pray.
Try to see the truth of it.
Try to love & think.

Jan. 15th, 2001.

Home

This is what i call home: Home is gathering around the table for dinner together. Home is waking up at different times, returning back when there's no one awake, but still knowing for sure that there are loving people living with you under the same roof. Home is coming back from work and knowing no other destination to take rest and throw all the tiredness of the day. It is when you come home from a chilling cold weather, to find a delicious hot meal waiting for you. All the warmth after the coldness, and the love, the silent love that warms the hearts. Home is where you are yourself, not caring to decorate your image, and where you share all your fears and worries, your expectations and disappoinments, happiness and sadness.
Home is where you family and friends are, where your emotions rise up to pure satisfaction and calmness. Home is where all your dreams are first imagined, built and fulfilled. Home is where you grow up and enjoy doing it, it is where you want to be, where you take a breath to go on fighting again. You love your home as much as the love found in it. There is no place like home.

December 16th, 2002.

New year, new job, new hopes...

It's a new year :) Happy new year to everyone.. i have been so much busy in the very first days of 2006, that i didn't even have time to notice that it is a new year.
A new job and new dreams, bigger than ever.. i feel i have entered a new broad world. The idea of a multinational company is still settling in my mind, and the appeal is high. I actually began dreaming of working in other countries all over the world. We have branches in a 130 countries!! and Egypt is just one... the chances are many#$%@!!
So here i am now, after regaining some balance after the change, i am back to blog. I don't know why i am haunted by the movie i saw last week, and decided to blog about it, it's called "Final Destination". It's a bit old, but it's my first time to watch it. Its story is so short, but it has a big meaning hidden inside. It tells a story about a group of students taking a flight in an aeroplane, and one of them gets a sudden vision that the plane will explode and all of them will die. He panics and makes a fuss, so he is taken off the plane with a group of his friends and a teacher. The plane takes off without them, and while his friends are blaming him for acting nuts, the plane simpley explodes in the air in front of their eyes, after only 2 minutes of flying!
They all get the feeling that they were saved and that a new chance has been given to them, while all their classmates die. But the problem has just started! The story goes that all the survivors get killed one by one in the weirdest ways. The freakiest idea is introduced: they all should have been killed in the plane explosion, but they cheated Death(!!) and now Death is after them to get even and follow the pattern drawn to the lives. The moral is: death must get to you on the time set by God, and no one can cheat death.
No matter how we perceive this idea, but what it made me really think about is the idea that we are all in this big project and each one of us has a certain "deadline" that he must meet, and be prepared for. The trick here is: we do not actually know the date of our dealine. We are supposed to get prepared with our output, which is actually not predefined. We define the output we want to present on the deadline day that we do not know its date! And to make thing more complex: there are endless ways to choose from and endless decisions we have to make all the time. We must be caught in action since we do not know the date. So the best thing to do is: get busy working, developing yourself and building trusted relations with others, fill your life with love, build something strong and remarkable,.. and while you do all this, don't think about the deadline. Thinking about it will not add value to your life, it might actually prevent you from doing your best. Just work honestly and be sure that nothing goes in vain.