Libyan University Standards

I know.... I know.. It has been a while since i last posted something.

However, in my mind, there are many posts coming and going, i am doing something, and i start preparing the next post, but it never reaches the keyboard. I feel the time just slipping like water through my fingers without anything effective being done.

But the topic of this post is not a new topic, i wanted to write about it for a long time now. It is not affecting me only, it is affecting all libyan students and graduates trying to get admitted to good universities abroad.

Especially those fields which does not require an exam to enter a University such as Science, Engineering or Law, you apply, do your language exam, send your transcripts, your graduation Certificate, and if you are very lucky your are amongst the ones who got over 80% at your graduation. Although i doubt that there are lots of libyans students who get this high scores. And this is the point. The way of grading the students in Libya is really more than unfair. I have taken graduate courses here in Canada, and i was very surprised at the grades they are giving, without being close to perfect your just get an A which is a very good. And it was not just any university or any course, but there in Libya, the professors are enjoying having the power to push the students down. to show them how powerful they are. this takes the chance from so many students abroad who are trying to get admitted at universities. Since the lowest grade acceptable here is 75%, and if you have this 75% and there are 5000 students applying, with only 300 positions available, who will look at your 75% if there are 3000 with more than 85%.

Here if they see that you are doing an effort, working, researching, thinking they will give you a good grade, but there, you can kill yourself learning, working, reading, it will not help.

Oh God, everyone of us will remember his professors, which are alone far from being perfect, and i doubt that one of them will be able to answer the exam questions in the short time they are giving us, oh, if they are kind, it is an open book exam, and then forget about trying to answer at all. Or the other professor who missed 95% of his lectures that semester, and only gave us 2, and then at the end he did only one exam, with all the subjects there the time was not even enough if it was the double and laughed and said "inshalla ennaja7kom""

Oh, good, i know so many students here trying to get access, and they are not able because of the low grades, and i am thinking 7asby Allah wa ne3m al wakeel on everyone who was putting his students down for fun, just to feel his power, on every professor who didn't care to do his job and at the end gave his students bad marks, in stead of encouraging your students your just kill every chance for them to enhance their selves.

Libyan Food

I wanted to write about Libyan food forever, but not because i want to see or put recepies, I wanted to learn as much as possible about Libyan food.
As I discovered a love for cooking, I am interested in knowing more details about what ever I can get about libyan food.
But let me start from the beginning, as the Libyans are dividing themselves into groups according to their origin, Tripoli, Benghazi, Zwara, etc. also the food is different sometimes, and sometimes if you don't know someone from the other city you don't know certain types of food, especially if you are not interested in looking outside the box.
In Tripoli the main dishes are (kosksi, reshtat borma, keskas, dolma, mbatten, and many other dishes), then of course you have Bazeen and there is a fight among the different cities, which one does the best one. Then the so called Borma in Tripoli is called Mgataa in other places. Another nice dish is Ftat, el Jbalia are known for it. In Benghazi there is Mathroda and believe it or not, i have just heard about this dish 2 weeks ago, and i have never tried it before, but i will do my best to get it from somewhere. These were the main dishes, there are some other kinds of foods, like 3aseeda, Zomeeta, bseesa, Gsab (sa7leb).
The interesting thing is that the ingredients are almost the same, but there are small differences in the way of cooking amongst families. As you know, common thing here to say is Family xx does the mbaten in oil only, but family yy put it in the oven after frying it. It is nice and interesting, therefore i always like to ask several people, especially the older ones about their way of doing a dish. You can find some interesting information.
As i am trying to make most of this dishes in Canada, there are somethings missing there, and somethings taste differently, but i never miss taking my spices with me from here, i remember a post about the smell of libyan food, and yes, the food smell strongly, but!!!!! without them it is not even half as good. It is true that i don't like to leave the house while cooking, because i know that all my clothes are smelling, but at the same time i would never leave the hrarat out if i cook bosla. (It is the main ingredient for me)
I learned about these spices, their mixture, how they are done, and the other interesting thing i learned about was fish. For the first time in my life i went to see the fish market, so many kinds of fish, and the seller explains what they are, for what best to use them, he was a nice old man and you can see that he knows what he is speaking about. It was nice for me to see people not giving up their proficiency, it is important to have these people, their knowledge because they are a big part of our culture, it is not the cars and the houses. The smell of fresh fish, but as well the smell of fresh vegetables here is great. I cannot remember having the same smell in Canada, it is the smell of my childhood.
I will continue to discover everything about our food, as long as I am here, and I will try to teach my kids how to love our food as well, and by the way, I have heard about a libyan restaurant over there in Canada.
I would love to post pictures as well of some dishes and the fish market, but my camera is not working so i was not able to make any.

new way of living

For someone who is not permanently living in Libya, and who is coming for a visit once a year, it is easy to follow small changes that are happening here.
Out of interest i am trying to figure out what i have been missing since my last visit. And there it is again, another visit, observations, listening to people and trying to understand the new changes.
Interesting are two signs on the streets, one for abused women, which seems to be a program for women beaten by their families, and the other one is a hotline for abused children. I would like to try and call this hotline to see if there is actually someone picking up the phone and offering help. But let's be realistic, Libyan life is based on what other people think and say about you, so many things are done and not done because of what others may think and say, a girl coming home late (after moghreb) is not good, what will the neighbors think, the possibility that she is working in a hospital or taking a course is not important. People who barely can afford the daily expensses of kids and house and food, have to borrow money or enter Jam3ya to buy that good (Saloon) so that when guest are coming to their house they don't say that their house is missing something. There is so much pressure and stress put on people here from outside they cannot live and enjoy their life just normally.
Another thing that really is disturbing me right now is the everyday show of cars, gold, houses, mobiles and money. People are mainly not defined anymore by what they are, smart, kind, honest, nice. No, what defines them is what car they are driving, how much they are earning, what mobile they are using and where they are living. It is sad to see how people look at and follow "the rich" people. Girls dream about a husband with money, big car and a big house, (i am not saying this is completely wrong, but the regular guy who doesn't have everything ready, but who would do anything to support his family is much better that someone who has everything and more, but doesn't care about his house, wife, family or kids) the priorities are more and more wrong defined.
Not to mention the Libyan driving, no respect for each others, if people just have some respect for each other and think like muslims and be patient or sometimes give the priority to some one else, the streets would be much safer and faster. You drive along a wide street with three lanes and you wonder why it is sooo crowded, then at the end you see it, there is a groccery shop or a another kind of shop so people are parking infront of it, and when the first lane is fully parked people just easily block the traffic and park in the second lane. just toooo lazy to walk just some additional steps.
I am sad to see all of this, i want to see it much better, i want to see traffic getting more organized, people helping each other and people not judging about others. And i am not saying this because i am thinking i am better, i am as well one of them as all are, i just have a Libyan dream.

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.