Marwa's murderer got a life sentence

Finally, today in Germany the murderer for Mawra El Sharbini got a life sentence.
For those you haven't read or heard about her, it is a pregnant lady from Egypt who got killed in a German courthouse because of her being a Muslim and wearing the Hijab. The Judge said that this guy said that he feels that the immigrants are taking his job opportunities, and he denies the fact that he is an immigrant as well from Russia, and that he is not a German.

However, this will not bring the wife and the mother of a 3 year old back, but it will give a little bit of satisfaction to the family.

The reason why this happened in my view is all the bad news about Muslims all over the world, what you hear is killing, killing and killing. And no doubt that people get afraid and hate what they don't really know and only know from bad news.

I am fed up saying that I want to be a good example for the Muslims, because I don't want us to be in the position of setting an example at all, I just want to live normally the way I life without thinking that the others may take a good or a bad idea. I don't harm anyone, I don't hurt anyone, I just want to live, raise my kids, study or work or whatever and be in peace.

Picture source

http://merryabla64.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/marwas20family_preview.jpg

Long time....

It has been a long time now, and it is time to end my vacation from blogging. But whenever i sit and think i should write now i start searching for something interesting to share that is worth reading.

Yalla, here the no. 1 news is the H1N1 shot that has started two weeks ago and with it the question should we or not?? everyone is asking the same question. But the clinics are more than full, hundreds of people every day. Side effects?? i think in the last month thousands of people have been vaccinated, so there should be enough time for the side effects to show up, and in regards to (on the long run) people smoke, eat junk food, don't do sports and live in too much stress. And all of this has a big effect on the long run, so what is the difference??

Do we need this shot?? the doctors say yes.

Do we have a choice?? Yes, for sure.

Can we live with bad consequences ( Allahum ohfodna)?? NOO

and at the end it is everyones own decision.

Advice, buy the alcohol sanitizer and use it as often as you can in public places especially when yo touch hard surfaces, (the virus can live several hours on hard surfaces) and wash your hands as soon as you get into the house. This is the least we can do to prevent the flu.

Food in Ramadan

One of the things that comes into mind with Ramadan is food. Everyone is dreaming of that soup (sherba) and all of the great libyan and not libyan dishes, (boreek, mbatten, osban, pizza, dolma, etc. ) Especially that in a way they taste even better in Ramadan.

Now i am feeling more than full, i have been eating so much today, but not because i wanted to, i have seen a program about people not able to buy even bones to cook with them, they are sharing a small peace of cheese with their kids, and many many other cases. This is the reason why i am trying not to through away any type of food. Normally i have a difficulty during the first days of Ramadan finding the right amount of food to cook, i need 3 or 4 days to be able to cook the exact amount that we need, and then i almost don't have any kind of left overs.

I hope all of you deal the same way with food, i have heard a comment of another liban lady the other day, (God will ask as for all the food that we are throeing away)

Very late, but my best wishes for Ramadan for all of you.

Islamic swim and sports wear

I know that it has been a while since my last post, i have been very busy with the kids lately.

However, yesterday as i was (as usual) googling around i thought about looking for Islamic clothing, since it is sometimes difficult to get something good looking to wear for me here in Canada ( i mean for Hijab) Here you find everything but you need to search for things you can wear with Hijab. And i came across the Muslima swimwear, it claims to be the swimwear for the active muslima.

I found several websites for several companies offering the swimwear online all over the World. The question is who wears them? I am not sure if it would so easy to wear them and walk along the beach, the people will look more at you in this way. And i am speaking about outside of the Arabic countries. However, it is a nice idea to be able to wear something like this if you have the courage to face the peoples curious looks and questions.

The picture shown is from the website ahiida, from australia for sports and swimwear.

What is the best recipe??

When the children come into the age where they are continuously trying to test their limits, the parents will have a hard time. The behavior of the child varies, from screaming to kicking to hitting. Suddenly the toothless baby who was used to send smiles all over the place and captured the hearts of those around is showing his teeth and hides his smile behind bad actions.

Then the question come up: now what?? How to respond?? how to control and show him what is wrong and right? What are the best tips??

Especially with the first child, the parents are learning as well how to be parents, knowing that every decision they make will effect their child's life forever (sounds serious!!!), actually it is.

I have been looking around in books and online, talking to people i know to find the best advice, and i have heard many things some where logical, some where scary and unbelievable.

Scaring with the (doggy who will come and eat you) or scaring with (hot pepper on the tongue) or scaring with ( something hot like a candle) are somethings that i was surprised that people are using. Hitting is common although some families completely refuse this methods while others say: we cannot control our kids without it.

Another new way, many learned it from "Super Nanny" is putting them on time out for some minutes. This sounds as the best method for me if the child is actually following and staying in the time out, but if not it is useless. Another method is taking his favourite toy away to show him that what he has done is wrong.

Now after all of these tips i am trying my luck with time outs and taking the toys away. Currently i am trying to ignore the actions that are intended to get my attention to let him know that he is not getting it in this way, i will see. In one of the online forums i found the following advice: Be positive, never negative. Be nice but strict. Try to give him attention and spend quality time with your child. It will take some time but you will reach there.

I am trying to see which is the best for my child and i hope he will be easier to deal with.

Talent show!!!!!!!

Some days ago i came across the Name (Susan Boyle) in the news and i was wondering. A new talent in the famous show (Britain got talent). An older lady who amazed the jury and the people with her singing talent, she seams a little bit weird but she is a great singer. Her video on you tube has been watched million times so i took a look as well.

The video reminded me of another talent from the same show, (Paul Potts), exaclty the same story, he looks different that the normal and seems very shy, people and jury thought he is in the wrong place at the beginning but then he started singing and !!!!!!!!!!

First, i want to say that both are great singers but my whole point about this post is ( is it really true or is it show business? Are they really just regular people who suddenly decided to participate in such a show or are they well prepared and put in as shy or weird to get the people's attention?? They might be singers who didn't get very famous and they are using them to get more money from the show.

Why isn't it possible for me to just believe it??

The links for both auditions are below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z0h1NNk1Ik

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCqzmVHS2RQ

Living abroad

I have been now abroad for a few years, and i figured out that there are some advantages and disadvantages, but it has to be mentioned that everyone has his own view about this.

Missing family and friends is one major issue with being abroad especially when you live very far away and it takes more than one plane to reach Libya. For example, when one of us needs some help, for example being sick, moving away there is always someone there to help you out.

Till now i was not able to make good friends whom i can ask for help in such cases, therefore if i need help i have to pay someone strange 10-15 dollars per hour to help me out. On the other hand if i live in Libya i will get overwhelmed with helpers and visitors in such cases as being sick or so. It is the opposite, sometimes you are looking for some rest but you have to be prepared for all kind of visitors. Again this depends on the person, some people like it to have lots of people around them.

Picture source: http://www.stepbystepimmigrationcanada.com/live-abroad.jpg

Spring time

Finally it is spring again. 

Due to some things to do i am not really able to enjoy the spring outside and i am really feeling sorry for that. But i am happy that it is finally blue, green and brown outside, instead of white, black, grey and grey and grey outside.

This year the first snow fell back in october, which is considered to be very early and till now there is some snow on the streets and even in our backyard which didn't melt yet. Overall, we lived in winter for almost 6 months. 

Finally it is time for picnics, grilling in the backyard, playing ball in the backyard with the little one or going to the playground cross the street with him.

And it will not take long and you will find tulips everywhere, in the streets, shops and gardens. 

Moreover, the wonderful smell of grass and sun that is filling the air, i can open the windows without feeling cold to let the fresh air inside the house.

I was not able to go out this weekend but i don't have any doubt that the parks are full of people enjoying the first days of spring here. I like it how the people here appreciate the nice weather and the free time to do activities instead of staying in the houses and watching TV. They are working the whole week and not able to do anything, and hence they are using every free minute they have on the weekend.

Picture source: http://www.cns-snc.ca/CNS_Conferences/waste_05/waste2005_main.html

The face book era!!!!

When did you come a cross facebook?

I think i first heard about it one and half years ago when i started my grad studies at the university. Some fellow students made a presentation about the new Internet. So i signed up to check it out but to be honest i didn't like it, i cancelled my account and didn't activate again.

One of the things that scared me is that they will keep my email address forever, so that if i decide to sign up for a new account and i use the same email after 6 years they will just say welcome back.

What else is facebook??
Facebook is a way to spy on your friends, what they do, who their Friends are, the more you put on your facebook account the less privacy you will have.
I admit that i am taking a look from time to time to some friend's account, this is the reason why i know somethings about it but the more i see the less i like it, all the new applications that you can add, all the information you can put to others. I liked what our professor said, now you are happy with it putting all the pictures and the information available to everyone, and in some years when you want to apply for a job your boss will check facebook and find some stuff he doesn't like and you will not get the job. He told us to be very careful with the information we upload, we have to read the privacy policies especially for such things as private pictures.

One advice, do not follow every new trend, some of them are taking more than they are giving.

Obama's airplane!!!!!

You might think now what does this mean? Obama's airplane!!!!


OK, i will start from the beginning. I am not that into politics, i don`t understand a lot of it and i am not interested in doing that. I don`t know a lot about what is going on in the news, but sometimes things come sooooo close that you are forced to face them.


Ok, Obama is the new president of the U.S., and i have to say that i don`t think that this will mean a big change to the world politics, but let`s be open and see what will come.


However, i was not infected by the so called ¨Obamamania¨ and therefore i didn't ake a big deal about Obama coming to visit Canada. In the news you were able to read that people were waiting for him in the streets in the snowy cold weather, you would read about several plans that he had here and that his trip was very short, only half a day.


We didn't plan to go out on that day, but we had to drop someone at the airport so we left about 4. We felt that the air was full of helicopters and i mentioned to my Husband that this might be because of Obama, although we thought that he had already left the country, and when we tried to reach the airport we found all streets closed. Obama was on his way to the airport. We went home and tried it again after 30 min.


When we finally reached the airport and we drove along the ramp to the departures there were some cars stopping just on the street and we almost run into them. Then we looked for the reason and we found it, sooo huge, sooo American, it was Obama's plane, we were soooo close to it, we could have stopped as well and kept on watching, but as i mentioned, we are not infected.


Why am i writing all this?? i don't know, it made me think. And it was weired at the same time.

picture source http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Photo+Gallery+Obama+Ottawa/1306028/story.html

Eating Outside

I don't know what is soo good in eating outside, is it the different taste to the usual home made food?
For a woman i would understand that she is enjoying not standing in the kitchen from time to time, some woman don't like to eat their own food. But for men?? normally the food at home should be their favourite because it is made like they want.
The question is why am i brining up this topic?? i am in libya for a visit, and in fact i am missing libyan fast food, libyan pizza, libyan shawerma and hamburger. But!!!!!!!!! I don't have any trust any more in any of the food shops. Normally they say the man know the good places, but eventhough my brother is bringing food from the so called clean places, i don't like it anymore.
Here, it became a trend to try the different restaurants. There are even real restaurants opening, nice locations, nice atmosphere, they say even nice food. But!!!! the question is not only is the food clean? Are the dishes and glasses clean? You are drinking from a glass that might be not properly cleaned, and too many deseases are spread.
I feel sorry, because we are an islamic country and being clean should be one of the main characteristics of muslims, why is there no trust??