Cold is Your Silence

Disaster has fallen upon my head
I wanted so bad to hear the words of love again
Alas, you stopped feeling and I was bathed in a bloody pool of tearing
No more tears are left in me
That's how i know I'm over you
I'm done loving in vain
I'm done crying out of pain

Iwish u never find this kind of love and i wish your next lover will never smoke
I wish the next girl will make you see how it feels to be in love with meeeeeeeeeee

Goodbye love, goodbye the love,
Goodbye the kiss, goodbye the call
Forever I'll miss that smile of yours
Forever the kiss that bound us both

Beyond the Grave

Beyond the grave comes the reaper in the night,
walking gently, floating on air
seeding hatred in the souls of the dead

My sorrow cried and cried to sleep
My tears rolled, my heart lost its beat

Through his eyes of a stranger, i shattered beneath
The pieces of my heart that counted the years.

My spirit has saved the hallow within
But the world has raped the love of green
The blue of night and the hazy realm
Of a past forgotten and a future of dreams

If I were ART

Twirling Arabesques in a book,

Graffiti writings on a wall,

This is this,

Art is Art....

Chaos Never Died

"NO, listen, what happened was this: they lied to you, sold you ideas of good & evil, gave you distrust of your body & shame for your prophethood of chaos, invented words of disgust for your molecular love, mesmerized you with inattention, bored you with civilization & all it usurious emotions."

(Hakim Bey - CHAOS: The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism)

As i was sitting the other day in a cafe, and there was this old lady that passed by, wearing a short dress and showing her legs. My first impression was what this old lady doing by showing her ugly, cellulite-full legs. But, then again, in less then a second i thought back: well, this is definitely not gonna be my reaction. Who said that she cannot enjoy her age and still think of herself as a sexy person by wearing that dress.

By doing what she does best, she was evading the system, practicing every day life. She is a model for all those who believe in emancipation and chaos.

society has bored us with ideas of beauty. The many steps it created to conform and unify the human beings has put pressure under many.

However, very few of us practice every day life. Very few of us are willing to shout from the rooftops that we, as a nation who believes in "crawling between the walls of church state school & factory" will continue doing so.

"So let's take our pistols to bed & wake up the city at midnight", let's write our own diaries of life, ride our legs in the cities. Let's kiss and cuddle, dream and paint the surrealist in us.

"CHAOS NEVER DIED"

The Age of Duplicity

The cultural industry defined by Adorno and Horkmeir is the thorn of pain in society today. And that same industrialized culture is however embraced by Benjamin. Therefore, if the same topic is treated by two parties on a different scale that means that now we can insert Roland Barthes and his theory about the edge of duplicity.
So far, after the many readings about theories and critical theories, I’ve come to realized that everything in this world is a double faced coin. Duplicity can be applied to all words and all works. Thusly, cultural industry has double edges. One edge which is conformist and obedient as Barthes defines it and another one which is mobile and blank.
Take for example the movies, movies can be tools for emancipation or can be as void and blank as a white page. Theatre, novels, talk shows, internet sites, articles and many others acquired this double faced coin to fit into life’s critical heritage. Even critical theory can sometimes be devoid of its content to suit the purpose of colonization of the mind for higher targets whether political, socio-economical and even personal ones.
I, hereby, am not trying to allude that our world is perfect.
Perfection is a state of mind.
Perfection is an excuse from the chaos the mind loves but the conscious abhors.
Perfection is a key word for living in illusion and lies.
Hidden karmas, lost paths, noisy and brutal circumstances make up a life, a life the wayit should be lived.
Tear off your clothes and walk naked in the sun,
Speak what’s on your mind and never be afraid of tomorrow,
For tomorrow is another day just like the one that preceded it!

notice the small font of the encrypted message above the wheel of the car(click ont he photo to enlarge)

I’ve been lately reading a lot about Marxist theory. And I must admit that I may be more into the subject than I should be. But this happens so considering my progressing rebellion against the social and economical hierarchy of society since I started growing my own awareness of my medium.
Therefore, one of the things I find myself doing lately is questioning almost all that grabs my newly formed critical eye. The other day, I was watching a movie and a sentence written on a police car hit my eye and the questions and notes started running in my head like a river of cold water.
The sentence said: “To punish and enslave”. The power to punish and the power to enslave belong only to that type of people who hold the ideas of powers; the great warriors of the world who are always there to watch you and guide your steps into their planning of your path.
Michel Foucault was one of his kind to gently, subtly and genuinely arrange and publish “Discipline and Punish”. In this book, he recounts the various ways in which human kind was restricted in his thought or actions. He studies the development and evolution of punishment from physical pain to an economy of discipline.
It is important to keep life ordered and bound to certain limits which validates the individual liberty but not freedom. However, considering the discussed matters in Foucault’s book, it is interesting enough to see the control and the manipulation over the mind and the soul. People have become trained – tamed in some ways- to follow the norms and the rules blindly and without questioning the status quo of their manipulated lives.
It is important to me to spread a kind of awareness against the power that governs our daily moves. From traffic lights to TV programs, it’s a unique manner to keep us down and move us fast. One can make a list of these surveillances and this list has no end.
Back to our case study, which involves the police motto “To punish and enslave”.
Isn’t that just the truth? The fake identity of police forces is to protect and serve but reality is not what it seems but quite the opposite. So in the mean time, we’ll have to realize that police force is just another deceptive reality, an illusion of modernism and social development. However, it has always been the same lie since it all started. Each country shows their best of evolution by annual displays of force like in Lebanon for instance although it is not qualified as a developed country.
But who has the right to assign such titles worldwide? What are the due criteria to do that? Is it the percentage of literacy? The rates of death ratios to birth ones?
This subliminal power has taken over the world over many centuries, but I call it my duty to talk about it. I have no intent to search for it, or to start a quest and pursue the reasons or causes of it. It is of no significance to do so. But my main concern is to emancipate the thought of confinement in a critical manner. No other equal force can stand in the face of the big power. But, I believe in the awareness. It is true that even the world united cannot stop the control, the surveillance, the damage that’s being done... but apprehending this calamity is a defence course that all of us, readers, writers, and workers must learn to better discern our lives and our lies.

The illusion of NOSTALGIA

Just the other day, I was at my mechanics fixing my car. The man was talking to his client telling him about this big dream of his. He'd really want to quit his job, buy a couple of cows and goats and go live far away form people, all alone. He dreams of never talking or communicating with people again.

Hence, it occured to me"What a pitiful world!"

It tooks human beings several centuries to urbanize themselves, to make ll the discoveries and all the progress but they are so sellfish and greedy. why would someone with a relatively nice job, quit it and go back to nature (as he puts it). Nature is a big lie, nothing is perfect there. eventhough this un-perfectness of nature or the old times, even if man could go back; he's d only want again to come back...

what is this indecision of the mind?'

where does this instability come from?

Do we always have to yearn for wat we had or dont have?

Reality itself is an illusion.

Nostalgia then is the greater deception in human lives....

Discipline & Punish - A proven theory of the fear of death

Discipline and punish, by Michel Foucault:

an intresting, intriguing, sickly, horror-ful, and whatever paradoxical adjectives can be put to describe this book. it is gruesome as a friend said.

however, after the first shocking story in the first few lines of the book, one gets excited to read more, to delve into the world of justice and the balance of power. while reading, i couldn't stop thinking that the governor, prince or any holder of pwer can with one word, one desire and even one wish stop the scaffold or continue the torture of men, workers... they have the power to brainwash the fear of death... isn't that intresting how the fear of death is consumed by society and produced by POWER... now my theory about the fear of nothing and everything comes crystal clear. Yes, death is no longer than another mental disorder in the minds of people.

Paradise Lost

The smell of the fresh wet soil hovered inside my nose, and triggered desires that lay beneath my eruptive calmness...The wind was howling, tearing the dead leaves apart from home to the cold ground underneath.a still sentation ravished my heart as i set my eyes unto these silent grey and faded skies that resembled the darkness inside.The clatter of rain against the window pane, taping so strong, tapping so fast, cut through my veins, like the knife I found drenched in blood, on the floor, next my door. The black mistiness of dusk started to take over what was left of my last lit days.“Thy hour has come”World of hunger prepare thyself to be sacrificed. World of lost honour, thy smiles are soon to become lasting cries.As I paved my way through the shadows of the moors that surrounded my life, I realized that the storm was only getting stronger band wilder. It was the worst tempest I’ve ever seen.[....]But still to come was the storm of my aching heart.As the lights grew dimmer, the weeping sounds afar faded away amidst the night; and all I could hear now was the beat of my heart, throbbing against my chest, pounding thunderously inside my head.I raised my hands upon my ears to silence these screams that drummed within. My world rocked to the beat, I swirled and twirled in my place till I went numb. Blackout....The next morning I woke up to the cry of the wind. That same howling from yesterday was still around. The drizzles of rain were still pouring down on my window pane. A dreary figure lay next my bed, holding my hands, resting its head upon my quilt. I breathed heavily and sighed. This hair I know, so soft and fair.This warmth of hands I reckoned their shape. Sharing my corpse with moments of despair, the hold was firm.I, then, realized the danger ahead!My mind was pulling tricks on me. I shook myself and shivered inside. A chilling breath upon my skin brought me back to life again!I opened my eyes to see him still as ice.What feelings dwelled inside, I could not say. It was painful to just sit there and stare. The beating of my core had stopped. The spirit in my soul ceased to spell words of wisdom, and thoughts of hell.My daze grew stronger as never before. The door suddenly flung open and some old lady came in floating on air. She stood behind the corpse and spoke sweetly to wake him up.[Dressed in black firm head to toe....]Just them I drew near my death bed. I was eager to find who lay within this body. As he lifted his head towards the dim light, I heard a faint scream, a cry so far, so lean. And all sank in black again.It’s been years now since my last awakening. The world I once woke up to was strange and cold, weird and bold.Heavy footsteps on the floor were followed by a knock on my door. Through the weariness of my eyes, I had a glimpse on what was on the other side. His gentle hands caressed my cheek and I heard him say in words oblique:“wake up angel to the sound of me,Prepare your wings to flee.”I dressed myself straight in bed. I looked at him. I was afraid of that touch, that gentleness in his words. His words.... familiar though...A sweet remembrance of the past held my thoughts into one piece again. He and I were together bound once upon a time. He and I once vowed loyalty to fate. We once laid our memories in the hands of life itself.But now, life is dead to us. We are now compelled to live in praise of recollections that once shaped our lives. Now, people will summon us and we shall be ready to reap the void of souls and dreary thoughts that lost appraisal in paradise.Though many sins are still alive deep inside of me, I turned out to become an angel... an angel of the dark.'' I come to thee, to rest thy soulI rescue thyself and open you the doorStraight to the place where you belong,Thy life will have set thy choice of fall...”
This pledge of fear many will fear but with Him so near, I’d never leave myself alone again.
An angel of the dark must never fall in love,An angel of the dark must never get involved,An angel of the dark shall remain a pure ghost,An angel of the dark I became tonight!
His voice echoed everywhere, as He kept on reciting my vows for me and I raised my hands to these commands:“Thou art powerful beyond any reach, my heart shall lead and pave you the way, my heart will listen and you shall follow his voice well...”I took these words as kept them like a prayer, I worshiped the man who put me insight of many betrayals, I prayed the gods to keep him sane, to keep him safe from the world above.
I raised my head and stared into the sky. The sky was white not grey or blue, the clouds were white, the birds were gone and no one’s anew but far away I glanced a shape, so black, so dark that it made my heart shake. So feathery and marked with silver stripes that every time it flocked its wings a bright light shined straight in my eyes.“The Crow, the legend is alive again!”
Indeed my queen, replied a voice.I looked behind towards that sound, to only find a small child with dark blue eyes and a faded smile.“I shall be thy faithful servant, that has come to guide thee from this land into the Crow’s domain: its majesty’s empire, the Crow’s temple of fire.”My legs crippled and I felt weak. If that’s my victim, my heart shall weep. This mission has worried my soul that over few nights I became troubled and soon became bleak. My wonders let me far away but my servant never let me astray. Holding me tight with hands so small, I felt obliged to recall my fall. Before today I’ve been so light and free. Yet comes today I am a chained soul, tainted and cold.The journey I led was peculiar and odd. Many strangers served my vows. A harvest of souls I soon declared and soon all men under my feet proclaimed their allegiance to me.
My servant and I stepped in the temple of scars, marking our footsteps on the marbled floor, smashing some pebbles under our feet and damaged the fences that protected the Crow – the living legend of human thought.
Proudly, he was sitting on the throne, all mighty, all alone.A face of gold stained his face and kept him safe from the harm of the Fallen.

Join Me in DEATH

I am not studying and the fear of loss is hovering above my skies.

Is this a surrender to the power that controls the contemporary lives, where learning is important for one to live comfortably?

Is this my cry to go against the current and am I believing in my own power that I do not want to become part of the insitute, of the community at college?

A year ago, I would literally eat up my studying and surprize myself with my assignements. Today, I find myself thinking that having to abide by the rules and study is a form of power whose control is eating me up from the inside.

Where does the fear of power start and end?

Why am I so weak that I'm about to my life away because of this idea of power. I do not want to conform to rules, I want to be Control Free.... unbound to whatever force and whatever thought. Howver, I find myself drowning more and more in this controversy of perception.

Most things have become blurry and dizzy. It feels I'm spinning around and getting nowhere.

I want to study and learn but no commitments i can deliver... Hence, chaos of my life is getting organized and charted along these lines.

JOin me in DEATH!

S.O.S????

I’d like to follow a friend of mine in his search for a real Lebanese mind, in his scratching of the Lebanese quizzical mind. Coming closer to the elections is a big fear I’m harbouring day after day.
Aren’t we done with all the acts and all the plays everyone has been producing so far? After all we’ve been through as Lebanese haven’t we yet, acquired a critical sense to recognize the illusions thrown at us from the left and from the right?
How do I by far come to peace with my people when their community mind is so set afar from mine? Should I alienate myself as a reader of such a text of life? Should invest in a better reading of such a puzzled consciousness? Should I become a barthian living creature? Or should I crumble and retreat to my shell?
Perplexing questions pop into my head. Am I writing a new narrative or just doing a re-reading of the same old book?
What I want to do is become the writerly history of a nation. Don’t we all know that nations are narrations? Thus, I would become the narration of my people. I will incubate my all within any narration but following the status quo of this moment, I think I shall never achieve my goal if I keep on reading and not writing.
We all have the illusion that all nations have their great moments in history, that all people are great. But the truth lies beneath the small, secret and dark lobbies. Seeing the truth with my own eyes has set me on the margins of patriotic people. Should I challenge you to accept and read my discourse or should I dare to tell the part of the truth which I know?
Failing me is not an option and I think that I’ll be fighting to the end. But whoever falls first will suffer greatly. Would it be me or my self....? Does this stir any meanings?
I believe that Sarasine by Balzac holds duplicity in meaning. It is at the same time the life of a castrated persona but also the duality in character within one’s self. The edge of duplicity comes between the lines of the story where little by little the enigma is revealed and the signifiers cross-multiply and generate another signifier. It is the story of the elusive signified. Are we in Lebanon living the same model? Are we on the search of an elusive signified and are we drowning amidst an ocean of signifiers and totally blinded to muffle the rescue calls?
Towards the lighthouse marches the band,
Amidst the gloomy skies lies the rage of gods.
Harvest is coming soon,
But the crops are not bloomed.
Is this the end of the dream?
Is this what I think it seems?

I'm so jammed right now in the head... "not right in the head"i think.... and I'm so terrified of this phenomenon... Anyone with ideas how to cure this thing?

It feels like i have a milion idea i wanna treat but no words are coming out... Yea... i got me a jammed head alright....

PEACE

* A hindered thought crossed my mind.
Cursed art thou, evil child. *

Divine power searches the night,
For a human mind to feed upon.
And while the priests have gone astray
And the people...
Their minds, devoured by heavenly lies,
Hallowed sins and oppressed desires.

The joys of life surrendered in front of
A callous clout from high above.
“Pray and Feast” the lord thus said,
“Be my sheep”, and they obeyed.
Blinded are they to follow that path,
To wander that land, and to lead the march.

Sur-Realism

The door loses its desire to sleep,
And the feet awaken the fire in the lake of the leaves of the creamy woodland.
The guillotine stands in the water, feeding its eyes with the sparkling of the cotton sheets.
My dress shot the veil,
And the veil burned the hair,
And the hair locked the heart,
And the heart shattered in chocolate bars,
And the lies roll like a summer breeze.
And then, I went to sleep and drank my fingers,
And I ate the wine of my dreams,
The hourglass married the clouds,
Then the wind begot the grass of the wailing fox of the market.
And I woke up to dream again...

<<>>

After reading my friends' posts on the Parasite/Host theory, I was reminded of the Matrix movie and its two worlds; a world of REAL and a world of agents. Aren't we - as literature students- living in a similar dimension? I think of us as the hosts and the parasites of society. We live our college lives hosting the thoughts and theories of those who were before us, the thinkers since Plato till the contemporary critics. At the same time, too, we become the parasites in our society. We live with great ideas and ideals, controversial thinking and non-conforming norms. We host them, embrace them and get inlfuenced by them. And what does society do or think? It, sometimes, marginalise us. It tries to destroy us - being a parasite, a harmful agent in their chain of life. But, we are part of that chain. For without parasites, the food chain is destroyed and decomposers no longer do their jobs and in the end, mother nature decays.

Evolution.... Darwin.... Deconstruction... Derrida... Miller.... Serres....

During this week, the Vatican hosted a seminar to discuss Darwin's Evolution Theory. After a century and a half, the most influencial power in the world consented NOW on discussing the genius, the man who paved the way to criticism; criticism of the world in which we live. Once being the parasite, Darwin is now getting his VIP ticket into religious society that controls the public. How much would it take society to accept the parasites' thought such as Derrida, Miller, Serres and many others. How much would it take my enviroment to accept me.. us as changing agents among itself.

We, students, are the hosts to the spirit of the text.

The text becomes our parasite within.

We become parasited by the text.

We parasite society.

Society becomes the host and the parasite.

Hence, why are we denied the freedom of thought, speech and the force to change what's around us?

The city rat and the country rat parasited the sleeping man and he in his turn parasited their lunch together. this is an unbreakable chain. Why not go against the current and tolerate the change we shall cause around us?

The question remains unchanged and the answer is never there... WHY???????

The critical Eye in the Digital Cutlture

I’ve recently read an article by J. H. Miller: “Studies among the ruins”, and I was interested to know that this great author and thinker has become an advocate of the digital culture that has invaded our daily lives. In this article, Miller says that the digital culture hasn’t demolished literature, but that the internet and the mass media have given a new view of literature. In other words, this digital culture has not contributed to the end of Literature but the end of a classical view of literature. There’s this changing wind that formed a new wave of though and writing, the once thought of psychoanalysis or literature or love letters still exist but under another shape or form.
Henceforth, texts are being studied instead of works. The classical literary criticism of a text has been – to a certain extent - the study of the genre and its specificity and their purpose in the text. But today, things have changed: there’s been a major shift of roles. Instead of centring the texts under one view which is the “norm” for reading that text; the decentring of things has engaged people, all people, to reason, rationalize and question all texts and all ‘works’.
However, this new attitude created some controversies. The tolerance degree of decentring among readers is what would affect the new literary studies. However, it has always been the case. It‘s always been the reader who first affected the spread or not of a book. Books were either welcomed or challenged. Of course the many appraisals of books by reviewers change the view of most readers, and the radical changes that have come up under the light of the digital culture are not only challenged but also feared, first by the critics, who seem to see a threat in opening up to new dimension of critical thinking, and second by the masses of readers who wouldn’t digest this change, yet.
In this new world, under this new-fangled light of thought, things are to get controversial. The development of human thought and the onward movement of the human race are a curse and bliss. They open new doors but release the traditional and the old fashions. One may read a text or novel under the light of the traditional or one may take his/her readings farther into the digital word and come up with a new view; one may question the idea, the thought, the democracy, the politics and the norms of things in life.
The literature of our time has become a new colonizing agent, according to Miller. The studies among the ruins, somehow, have become a virtual reality. There are no more norms or orthodoxy in literature. The discourse of the new age fits every profile and every mind. The monopoly of reading was conquered by GLOBALIZATION. And thusly, all of our thought and writing goes around this one power that drenched the world from its senses into interactive insignificance.

The fears all things and NOTHING.

Man as a supreme being has this thought and emotion of fear. This is a basic instinct which, since evolution started, enabled him to survive in the wilderness, reproduce, live among groups and still hold this innate feeling.

Man fears all physical things around him. He fears fire, and windstorms. He fears tornados and earthquakes. Man also fears wild animals or unpredictable human behaviours. But at the same time how can man fear something that only exists in his mind such as death.
Not a long time ago, it came to me that the fear of death is only a matter of religious phantasms that turned man’s life upside down. It chained his life and his thoughts. And everything he/she does turned back to that one matter.

I admit that weren’t this phenomenon weird in the Man’s eyes, he wouldn’t have thought about it. But many matters were weirder such as fire, procreation, sickness and many others. They confused Man at first but their regular occurrences taught Man to accept and react upon them. Hence, storms, no matter how intense they are, became part of his daily life. Still though the wonder of death which turned into ultimate fear and rejection because of the element of the unknown. However, what was unknown few centuries ago is now a scientific truth. And who says that one of these days with all the current technological development Man wouldn’t come to reveal the secrets beyond death. Humanity decoded the riddles of fire, lightning, thunder, animal behaviour and I can presume that the same would happen to the death matter.

This nothingness beyond life shouldn’t scare us. For, if we were meant to live beyond our current existence, we would have done so. Who’d ever thought that Man could fly in the sky like birds do, or live under water like fish do? Centuries ago, all missions outside the earth or inside of it were matters of science fiction (Jules Verne’s novels: Around the earth in 80 days, From the Earth to the Moon, Journey to the Center of the Earth or even Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea). Today, the fictious machines described in these novels are the necessities in our daily life, whether it's a jet plane or a rocket ship, a submarine or else. Therefore, I shall conclude this post by saying that I believe that someday, maybe soon or maybe during the days of our grandsons and daughters, Man shall reveal the truths he cares about or at least those still hidden secrets.

Playing with divine powers.

What if our world is a myth? What if all our beliefs are legends? What if all of our holy books are plagiarisms of one or two older sources of rituals and historical beliefs? I’ve always asked myself about the sole creator. Who is he or she? Why do we have to blindly believe in him/her? Why has never anyone found real and concrete proof of it? I’ve asked a lot of people: clergy men, thinkers, I’ve researched most philosophers and I found no answer. No one can ever define this power or find its origin. Therefore, I began my own research. I went back in time to the first rituals ever made by Man. I retraced his thought and i had few keys to work with. For instance, it was peculiar enough to see that the only civilisations that have ever thought of gods as similar to humnas are the Greeks. In Edith Hamilton’s book 'mythology', it was said that the Greek poets and artists thought of man so great, so splendid and strong that he became their fulfilment of their search for beauty. Thus, the Greeks realized that they didn’t need an unknown and paralyzing omnipotent power. Their gods were as humans as us. They had our characteristics and our flaws. ('Zeus, trying to hide his love affair form his wife who was the stock character of a typical jealous wife...') all these made the Greek gods closer to man but of course they were to be feared for they were very powerful and dangerous when angry...then Greece might have freed people from the monstrous idea of the un-human supreme over the human (myth1). Humans, I guess, always needed this mysterious power that justifies all things in the world. Man needed something to revert to as a purging source when he made mistakes, he needed a supreme power behind which he would hide or try and explain or understand nature around him. I’m not trying hereby to prove or deny the existence of any god or gods. This is just an attempt to understanding why did we need the creation of such force(s). Man is so an intelligent being. Why would he deny himself the belief in his/her unconscious? Why wouldn’t he credit himself for procreation? I, personally, believe that no power is greater than the one each human being holds within. To me it’s the feeling of relief with one’s self is the key to open the door to one’s sublimity and divinity.

Sources:

Ø Myth1: Edith Hamilton, MYTHOLOGY: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes (1969), §16-17-19

Image : http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gods.jpg

Students of the main stream education in Lebanon.

Lebanese students suffer a lot to acquire their education. Since kindergarten, they are expected to fulfil all requirements of intelligence and stand out from the crowd. So far, I’ve realized how unhealthy this demanding view upon them is. I’ve recently had the opportunity to be a substitute teacher at my former school. Believe me when I say that I was devastated and nearly shocked to what I’ve experienced. Children either tend to become teachers’ pets or fade in the classroom background or get all the blame for the classroom noise. What I witnessed behind the walls of that school was beyond my comprehension. I never thought that I was brought up and educated in such an environment. There the teachers have more than 15 years of experience in the field of education but none of them caters for the needs of his/her class. When I first entered a grade 8, I was afraid to face such chaos and disturbance. The students were nearly savages. The principal would enter the class every day before my arrival, threatens them, screams at their faces, then turns her back and head back to her office. Has it never occurred to her mind that such an attitude with such a delicate age would create more revolutionary acts on behalf of the class than some peace and quiet? Has she never taken into consideration the option of communicating with them and trying to locate a common path for a classroom harmony?
From that day on, I realized that my task of replacing another teacher was ever going to hard and time consuming. But, that was no problem. I dedicated myself to open a route for that class in particular. I thought that if I was going to succeed in my mission, I needed to perceive every student’s character and somehow study his personality so I can fit my lesson plan to the classroom’s atmosphere.
That year, the school’s program was based upon succeeding to get an accreditation from the French embassy so that French students can manage to study in Lebanon the French program. Every day, you’d feel like you’re walking in to a bee hive: all the tension and the hustle of the teachers translated into strain and pressure inside the classrooms. Since I was teaching in a French educational school, English language is a second language learning class and so all students would lessen of its importance in the face of the French language which would take all their energy, for the teachers gave all in order to show the embassy excellent results. I would enter my classes after the principal’s harsh speech of every day and see the disgust in my students’ eyes. I had a big challenge ahead: I should fulfil the curriculum’s objective but personally I wanted my class to be relieved and happy to learn the language. My next step then was to throw my perfect lesson plans away and create new ones. I added the free time option. It’s the first 5-10 minutes of class time where I can tell my class jokes or charades that would introduce my lesson whether in grammar or reading. I also added the time-out option which is applicable once per week, where students would evaluate the week’s class work and individual work. And so, little by little, my students became less agitated, more relaxed and of course more productive in class. They would even compete among themselves around who’d get the best joke or charade, who’d be the first to show his research topics or even to tell his friends about his latest online discovery.
With few twists in a lesson plan, patience for classroom work and a lot of love and understanding for students, I managed to fulfil the school’s demanding syllabus, got students to work more and from the bottom of their hearts and I also build that unbreakable bridge between a teacher and his students... I was their friend within some limits but most of all now, when I meet them, they tell me how much of a guide I was to them. This, my friends is the truest and most sincere recommendation I could ever have. It isn’t your knowledge that makes you a good teacher but it’s your love for this mission, and your readiness for change in all weathers.

A long time ago was the truth...

A long time ago, there lived a girl whose mind no one understood. She fought hard and she fought badly and all was lost inside her head. Then on one winter night, she left her family, and she gave up on the world that never satisfied her thirst for knowledge. Carrying her dreams, her insights and her only realm of pain, she headed outside town, up to the mountains high. The road was smooth and ever easy. That confused her mind, but ever risky she continued to pave her way through the hardships of her journey. The cold breeze was washing her tears, singing away her aches and her fears. The silence of death that roamed around broke her stillness and quenched her hunger. The lost world she feared to face came to her and bowed with grace. Under her feet sang the angels, and around her body they danced in awe.
The story I told is the story of me, an innocent little girl who was never supposed to be all learned about the cruelty of the word, the brutality of her world.
In the world I live in, all freedom ceases to be. The law clearly protects one’s freedom of speech and thought. However, in a conservative and religious world we are living in, the law is brainwashed somehow in the citizens’ minds. A few are allowed to say what things really are. But knowing how close death can be, these thinkers shut their doors and live in isolation for better or for worse.
Today, I want to speak up my mind and say what I mind and what I don’t. Today, I want to raise the stakes of my life; I want to raise the bar for those whose voices were lost and never found. Citizens of the world wake up and hear my call. Your brains are being shut by powerful forces of darkness. These forces induce your thoughts to sleep and in the end you’re turning out to be marching robots for unmarked purposes of sheer consumerism.
Whatever you do nowadays doesn’t matter the least in the heart of your community. We have become programmed societies living on video. Humanity has never been a free one; man has never tasted freedom because simply it doesn’t exist. This thinking animal, with his great ability to create, anointed himself with an everlasting life which he lost upon socializing. Meeting others, living with them and interacting in a certain environment and other social gathering have given nothing but a mere place in a faded background where one is bound to act and think according to the group he/she belongs to. I would really call upon you, readers to try for once and speak up your mind in a gathering. I bet you would think a hundred times about your sentence so it fits the proper talking of a society before you throw your thought away. However, since we are talking about freedom, let’s set one thing straight that it does not and it will never exist. Why search for the elixir of life? Why bind your existence to a concept drawn into people’s minds so long ago? Wake up and smell the smoking fires burning your brains!
Want me to move on? No, I will stop here today. I will make your rest and think about what was said. Tomorrow maybe I will give you more hints on how to realize that freedom is like the ‘god’ theory, where everyone is given to believe in the existence of a creator, an all-knowing someone/something that moves us all and where we are bound to it till the day we die and beyond. And so is freedom: a belief in the existence of a so-called power that has the ability to change your life.
N.B.: there is no tomorrow we only live in the present or else we wouldn’t exist.
... Good NIGHT...