This and That

I wanted to update the blog for a long time. But i am not finding a nice topic to write about, so i decided to write about this and that.
First of all, i am finally done with my courses, i am on vacation, and it took me only two days and 20 cm of snow to feel bored again. It is really funny how people are feeling, during the semester i was missing the times sitting in front of TV, playing with my son or going out for shopping. Now, i am free to do all of that and i am not interested. I think people are never satisfied with what they are having, they always want a change.
However, Canada is suffering from cold weather the last couple of days, first there were places with grades up to -47. Can you imagine it? -47? even my fridge is not as cold. I am soo thankful that i am not living in such a cold region. However, even places that are not so used to the cold suffered from it, snowstorms, schools closed, traffic stopped and even air traffic stopped. I am glad that the place i am at had only a couple cm of snow till now but this can change.

What else????? mmmmmmmhhhh

My son started to watch TV shows for kids, i am trying to keep a close look on what he is watching, even though he is still tooo young to understand the main things, but i have to be careful. But to be hones, i like the shows they have on their children's channel. Sesame street, barney show and lots of cure cartoons. But the main point is that all of them are half educational half fun programs, so it is not considered a waste of time if my son watches them from time to time. He already started to ask for many (Barney).

For every one living abroad, the winter sale will start now after christmas. I hope that everyone who is enjoying shopping will be able to make good deals.

After a long break

Actually it was not a break, i have been busy with my courses this semester. However, i am allmost done. I just wanted to share this video, it touched me sooo much.

What about our Seniors??

What about our seniors???
This question came in to my mind in the last time. The weather was very nice last week, allowing us to go out for walks and to go to the playground. In fact, whenever you pass by a park you will see a lot of seniors either walking around or sitting on banks and reading. Actually sometimes i see them even doing sports like jogging or cycling. I am speaking about the ages starting from 60+.
It is true that the social system in a country like Canada is not so family oriented, often you find elderly people living alone and taking care of their own, without anyone even cheking on them from time to time. However, they stay active till the end, they keep themselves busy and healthy. They don't sit down and wait for their time to come.
While in Libya, the social system is more family oriented. You would almost never find an elderly one living alone. If someone gets older his sons/daughters will take full care of him. But they are not active, they are sitting, watching TV, you find some sitting in the streets playing cards. In some cases you will even find an old man cycling, but not because he wants to stay active, instead he is in need and doesn't have a car to move around.
Overall, i find it sad that there are no activities for seniors in Libya. The only thing that i can think of is that some families go all together to their farms or the beach for some change.

Taking a difficult Desicion

For someone living abroad, one of the desicions to take is to leave your kids with a babysitter or put them at a daycare, mainly of both partners are working or studying. In Libya this would not be a big issue, mainly because either of the grandparents will take care of the kids when the parents are away.
While living abroad means that you have to decide, first will the woman go out or not and second where to put the kids.
If the woman chooses to go out and study or work the search for a caregiver for the kids begins, and this is the difficult desicsion. Is there anyone who can take care of your kids as you are doing?? mainly if they are still young and not in the school age.
What are the main points you have to look for at a caregiver??
Trust?? education status?? health check?? police check?? References??
You have to watch your kids very closley, their behaviour, their little bodies, their reactions.
Too many times i have heard of babysitter hitting the kids they are taking care of. Trust your kids more than anyone, trust your feelings. A false desicion made by you will have bad effects on them.
A nother choice is to put your kid at a public daycare, which is controlled and monitored by several persons and not only by one, but your kid will have a bigger chance of getting sick and learning bad habbits.
However, never forget, nothing is more important that them, always choose what is best for them and not what is cheaper and more convinient for yourself.

Blooooodaa

It is always something nice to see a little kid doing something funny, from time to time i watch these kinds of movies because they put a smile on my face.

FW.........

How many times you get forwarded e mails from your friends????
There were times where i used to get tens every day, while now i get them only every ones in a while. However, if you think about these e mails, you can mainly put them in three categories: funny mails, religious mails and the last category is the one that i don't like, warning e mails.
Warning against a shampoo type, a tooth paste, a power drink or even chocolate, my problem is the way in which such e mails are written: hidden hate speech and usually a lot of lies. I got used not to read such e mails, because they make me angry, they say to much without any proof or reference, so it is a way of making trouble, if we are able to think and question there are others who take everything as right and who might make wrong actions out of this information.
If i read something in the newspaper, for example about a product that might be harmful, i would want to share it with my friends, i would show a reference for it, i would look up a proof for that, so that it is believeable for others.
The other thing is the promises you find in these emails, publish it and you will get (Ager), i doubt that i will get something back by publishing lies.
Please make sure that what you are forwarding to your friends is true and trustworthy, so that you can get something out of forwarding it to others. Don't be just a name in the long long long list of forwarder, do not let some people trick you into something only they know what is the truth behind their actions.

I hate rasicm

It is facing people everyday, no matter where they are, and no matter from where they are.
First I wanted to define it correctly to have a good picture about it. "Racism, by its simplest definition, is discrimination based on race. One with racist beliefs might hate certain groups of people according to their race (i.e., bigotry), or in the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits. Racism typically starts with, though is rarely confined to the assumption that there are taxonomic differences between different groups of people. Prejudices on other grounds would strictly categorize as discrimination to national or regional origin, religion, occupation, social status or some other distinction." [Wikipedia]

All of us got used to the idea that the West has a bad idea about Muslims and Arabs, we might even faced some actions that showed these bad feelings against us, mainly for those living abroad. Violence against some of us, hate speech, or sometimes insults just because you look like you are. We go to Libya, let’s talk about Libyans now, and say: they have a problem with us Muslims, they see only bad news on TV, and they don't see the actual picture. We love peace, we are normal just like them but with traditional and cultural and religious differences. Friends and family ask us if we had problems abroad, some may had while others not. But all of this is not my issue, my question is: " why do you want the others to accept YOU, if You don't accept the others?????" I was chatting with some Libyans, we were talking about the difficulties living abroad, the experiences we had, the relations to the citizens and how they treat US in their country, since WE ARE the FOREIGNERS in their country while at the same moments they were speaking about some other foreigners as people less than us.
We complain about racism, but we are racists too. How many times you've heard people speaking bad about other Arabs in front of you? I can't even count the times; the funny thing is that we are racists even between each other. Tripoli, Benghazi, Zwara, Jbalia. Isn't this true??
How come we expect people to accept us if we don't accept the others?
I thought no one is better than his brother? How come you are a Muslim and at the same moment you think you are better than another person. Only you work and good deeds will tell if you are better than the one you are looking down at. Maybe someday the people you are now ignoring will look to you from paradise while you might not be with them.