I've been meaning to update recently but I've either been occupied with uni or it's just that I didn't really know what to blog about. Well I do have a couple of things on my mind right now, I just cant seem to be bothered with jotting them down. But I thought I'd share two short poems, both of which were dedicated to me. I deeply appreciate it, but my only fear is that I might've failed in showing it. I'm truly honoured to have those people in my life, and I hope I am capable of showing that at the very least.
I also have another two things that I'll be posting soon, a poem and a short story, but they are still under construction.

عيناه كالشهد المصفى ............. تسحر العقل تخيف
زادني شوقي اليه بكائاً ............. حتى صرت من كثرة الدمع كفيف
ارحم اخاً، قلبا محطما .............. ينزف الدم منه نزيف
نعم فارس للعرب انت .............. عادل شهم عفيف

يأيـــها الناس ألا ترون جمــالهُ ............ هو عشيــقي وأنا الحبيــبُ المتيــــمُ

لو رأيتــم مــــا أراه في عينــــه ............ لقطعتــــم أياديكـــم و لســـال الـدمُ

أين المحــــبين مني و منــــــه ............ عشقــــاً و حبــــاً فقنـــا كل منهـــمُ

ربـــاه يا ملــــك الملــــوك و ربنـا ............ أدمــــه لي نبعــــــاً لا ينضــــبُ

لا تســـألوني عن وصـــــف لــــه ............ هو الشجـاع و هو الجيـــش العرمــرمُ

يوم المعـارك و عندما يشهر المهند ............ تــراه في الصــف الأول هو المـقــدمُ

قلبـــــــــه كالثــــلج في بيــــــاضه ............ فلا حقــــدٌ و لا بغــــضٌ محــــرمُ

ادعـــــوا إلهي أن يحفظه لنــــا ............ وأن يعيــــش الدهــــر مكرمٌ منعــمُ

I hope you enjoyed them, because I obviously did! =D

Prison gates won't open up for me...

Last Friday was the day of my graduation ceremony, it was definitely a day to remember! No I haven't graduated yet.. well atleast not with my Bachelors. It was a diploma of engineering, nothing big.
Nothing was going right or as planned ever since I left for uni at 8.30 am. I had one of two 4-hour-stretches in my timetable, and this one's comprised of two 2-hour labs back-to-back. I was done with classes at 1 pm, but I wasn't very productive at either one of them. I then bummed around uni for an hour or so because I was supposed to pick up the graduation gown and hat by 2.30 pm, which I did just in time. I thought I had plenty of time to go back home, shower and get dressed. I was supposed to be back by 3.30 pm in order for the ceremony to start at 4.00 pm. And I had just enough time to do what I had to do. I was done and ready to leave for the ceremony by 3.30 pm (first serious sign that things are going to get messed up!). I called a cab, waited... waited some more, called another cab company, waited.. and waited. Little did I know at the moment that cabs were no where to be found on a Friday (but I thought that was only at night!). I had no choice but to call my friends, and luckily they were having lunch right by my place. They were kind enough to give me a ride to uni, and just as we left one of the two cab-drivers I called for had arrived. We all cracked up and ignored him. The time was 4.07 pm. Yes that certainly means that the ceremony has begun. I arrived at the theatre doors by 4.12 pm, and I was holding both my graduation gown and hat. As I walked down that semi-walkthrough to the actual seats and stage, I noticed that the engineering program manager (top dawg lol) was on stage, behind the microphone, mumblimg some words. As I got closer I heard:

"...and the January 2006 graduates of the diploma of engineering are... Arabian Prince" (obviously my real name)

a rather long pause, then "... Isaac Newton" (whatever the guys name was).
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to elaborate. I was nervous, awestruck, bedazzled... I had to make a split-second decision! I could either walk right onto the stage (going up the wrong end!) and without having my graduation gown on OR I could've just silently walked over to the right side of the stage to stand at the back of the line of engineering students that were being called out to recieve their certificates.
I opted for option number two. I would've made a big scene if I had gone for option number one. I'm sort of glad I didn't.
I stood there at the back of the row not knowing what was going to happen. There was this lady on my left, she asked me whether I was an engineering student and whether I should be in this line waiting for my name to be called out. I assured her that I was. She then asked me to put on my gown quickly (something I hadn't done up until then!). I then stood there with a semi-dorky smile, wondering why I was even waiting. Just before the line had come to an end (by 3-4 students), I said to the lady:

"But my name has already been called. It was the first name"

She then smiled and asked me to find myself a seat and wait until the end of the ceremony to collect it afterwards. I smiled back, looked around for a seat, and sat my sorry ass down. But what no one knew is that on my way to my seat, I said to myself "Sons of my bit**es!!" and then sat down.

Ok it's not as bad as it seems, because only half of the graduating engineering students actually attended the ceremony. That's because we were given the option of attending the ceremony, otherwise we would just have to wait 3 more days to pick it up ourselves. However I compensated for all of that by taking pictures, so many pictures, something I hardly ever do regardless of the occasion. I bumped into the engineering program manager (the guy who was calling out the names), and he said "Hey... where were you when I called out your name?". I explained what had happened and he said in a very sarcastic tone "You still think you're in class don't you" lol

That's that! And for the dimwitted readers out there, yes ofcourse I got my certificate in the end! :p


**Announcement: A collection of pics were piling up so I thought it would be a good idea to update my flickr account

Return of the...

That was a long wait!!
Anyways back to where I left off... I forgot. It seems like its been ages. I said I'd try to post every couple of days even though my laptop was sent for repair. I tried and failed miserably. Not only did the repairing take much longer than expected but I was also occupied with uni. The last time I posted was almost a week before I started this semester, and now I'm in my 3rd week. That is quite a while. Well so much happened in that period of time that I don't know where to begin. One of the wonderful things that have happened in that period (atleast thats what I think) is that Warda is now a mother after giving birth to a cute little girl. It's strange how we can connect to eachothers lives through our blogs.. ok maybe that's just me. Well I felt really happy for her for some reason. For more info on that please visit Lym's blog.

The results of the post-diagnosis analysis rendered my hard drive unusable. Yes they actually changed the whole hard drive. They had to order the parts in and that's what made it a lengthy process. Well now it's back and reincarnated, just like when I first bought it. Luckily I backed up all my data prior to replacement.

Third week of uni and so far so good. The set of units I'm doing this semester (4 units) are actually not bad, I find that some are actually interesting believe it or not. The only thing I'm complaining about at this point is my messed up timetable! I start relatively early, end relatively late, lectures, pracs/labs and tutorials aren't spaced out and last but not least I have a stretch of 4 hours straight non-stop twice a week and and another stretch of 3 hours. Obviously when they set the times of lectures and tutes they forgot they were dealing with human beings. Notice the word relatively.. that's because it's never been like this for me in the past, it hasn't been this bad for my colleagues in the past and relative to other friends of mine in other fields of study I'm in a living hell. Not to mention the work load. But hey, atleast I haven't bothered really studying much yet, though I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

I attended a motor show, its held annually. It might've not been as good as the previous year but I saw some jaw-dropping cars. The show featured a number of concept cars from several of the industries leading names. It was a good chance for anyone to actually see and get a feel of all those cars in real life.

The 'English Sabla'... I missed that place. I haven't logged on in a very long time. I checked it a couple of times at uni and that was it. I checked it a couple of days ago and noticed that they had a thread dedicated to my birthday. I knew that it was something that happened whenever it was a members birthday but it took me by surprise to find one for me. Thanks to the initiator of the thread non other than Lym (ex-Empress). I'd also like to thank everyone that wished me a happy birthday and well wishes on my birthday.

Hmmm... yes I finally turned 37. So now what? Nothing new there. Excuse me, what was that? 37 you say? Just kidding, but someone on sabla actually said that. I finally turned 20 (or is it 19 Lym :p). No longer a 'teen'. What am I supposed to say when people ask me "So, how does it feel to no longer be a teen?". Well I usually smile it off, throw a bogus laugh and say "Yeah I know, I'm no longer a teen". I'm sorry but if you've asked me and this has happened to you then now you know the truth, like it wasn't obvious. What did I do on birthday? Well up until 2 hours before the plan started, there was no plan. Infact I had one plan, and that was to not have a plan! But what I really ended up doing was having a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant with 4 of my close friends. So much for turning 20 huh?

'nuff said! I'll leave whatever's left for my next post...