Best Advise Issue

The following is an excerpt taken from FORTUNE magazine issue dated May 12, 2008 from Indra Nooyi, who is the chairman and CEO of PEPSICO.

My father was an absolutely wonderful human being. From him I learned to always assume positive intent. Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different. When you assume negative intent, you are angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed. Your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response. You don’t get defensive. You don’t scream. You are trying to understand and listen because at your basic core you are saying, “Maybe they are saying something to me that I’m not hearing.” So “assume positive intent” has been a huge piece of advise for me.
In business, sometimes in the heat of the moment, people say things. You can either misconstrue what they’re saying and assume they are trying to put you down, or you can say, “wait a minute. Let me really get behind what they are saying to understand whether they’re reacting because they’re hurt, upset, confused, or they don’t understand what it is I’ve asked them to do.” If you react from a negative perspective- because you didn’t like the way they reacted- then it just becomes two negatives fighting each other. But when you assume positive intent, I think often what happens is the other person says, “Hey, wait a minute, maybe I’m wrong in reacting the way I do because this person is really making an effort.”

Changes

(The picture above was taken in Egypt in a cafe at the Kahn el Khalili market)

It seems forever since I last wrote and so many new developments have occurred personal as well as external. I want to try to keep up with the blogging in the future.
But I am not sure how much time I will have.

Since November the following has happened in my personal life: I went to Egypt during the last two weeks of Winter 2010 to visit my husband in Cairo. I was on the airplane for New Years Eve, only to land in New York, open the newspapers and see that the cover story was Alexandria, Egypt where a church was bombed on New Years Eve. I guess we can say that was only the beginning and a clear sign of major unrest to occur subsequently. In January the Ross University Medical School accepted me in their fall medical school class. January 23rd I turned 26th years old!!! Hurray!
January 25th, protests in Egypt began to which my husband did not go to, I might add, even though I tried to encourage it. In January, I also send in my application to the American University of Beirut Medical School. Yes, if you are wondering that is correct the school is in Beirut, Lebanon. In February, I received an acceptance to the St. George University Medical School in Grenada. My husband almost changed work companies but decided to stay with his old company. He went to Syria, came back to Egypt, thought he was going for work in Saudi Arabia only to go back to Syria. But it all worked out for the better as it always does. March 12th and March 18th, we celebrated my little sisters 13th birthday and my Dad’s birthday (sorry I don’t remember how old he turned, we just don’t keep track with parents or grandparents). Unfortunately, the week of his upcoming birthday my Dad was unexpectedly laid off from work. So we are in major trouble at the moment, and just pray that he finds a job soon and that everything turns for the better as it is supposed to always do. USCIS, answered my what seems hundred inquiry only to tell me that they understand how stressful my situation is but that the background checks are not complete and that I should not put in another inquiry for at least another 6 months.

I am waiting to get the acceptance from AUB but decided to go to SGU in Grenada in the fall. I have to be on the island for mandatory orientation August 10th! In March, Medtronic the company I work for decided that they will lay off 4% of the workforce which comes to about 1500-2000 positions. During this time they were offering Early Retirement and Voluntary Separation of Leave. March 10th or so I did what I had dreaded to do for three years but what I new was long overdue, and I put in my notice and request for Voluntary Separation. To my surprise it was approved. The day I received the call from HR stating that it was approved, I was so scared and thought I had done a terrible mistake. The economy is terrible and I am giving my notice. It took some time to settle in my brain that it is the right thing to do and that FINALLY I am going to medical school in a few months! My last day of work will be May 13th, 2010. Afterwards, I will be on payroll for another two months, I will also receive some lump severance amount of money. Before, my last day I do have to monitor two sites one in Iowa and the other in New York and those will be my last monitoring visits ever! That will give me enough time to sell my beloved car and other items and prepare to move to Grenada in the fall. In addition, there are many work changes happening, my group will not stay the same much longer and we have moved into the beautiful World Headquarters building.

June 20th through August 3rd I will be in Sarajevo, Bosnia in my beloved country and in the most beautiful city in the world! The plan is that my husband will join me in Bosnia during this time, so we will be together with the family. My entire family was supposed to go and my parents were planning a party for our marriage but now that my Dad was laid off this will not be a possibility at least not this summer.

June 6th, 2010, in only two months or so it will be our 1st Anniversary. Hopefully, many more are to be planned…… I can’t believe that it has been a year already, where does the time go? It seems it has been such a busy year. I will post soon my reflections on married life that have accumulated over the past year and especially married life separated 5000 miles, in two countries, on two different continents. Hey, I think some day I should write a book about it. As you might guess, we will not be together on our anniversary! Bummer I know. But we have pushed it back to July 6th this year because that is when we will be together in Bosnia and we will be able to celebrate!

Status Update on the Reading

Every year I make a list of the books that I want to read. Most of the time I have way to many books on that list and usually I never finish all of them by the time the following year comes by. Well, New Years is coming soon, and that means it is time to reflect on the accomplishments and possible downturns of a year gone by and make new resolutions for the upcoming year. Here is my update whose purpose is mostly directed towards me.

Reading List for Year 2010
• The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway (totally forgot about this)

• The Cheapest Nights by Idris Yusuf (Yes, read it but was not so impressed)

• Das Kapital by Karl Marx (still on the radar)

• The Discovery of India by Nehru Jawaharlal (started reading it
but did not get past the first few chapters, its very heavy)

• Death and the Dervish by Mesa Selimovic (totally forgot)

• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (I started at LEAST three times
reading this book and for some reason I always get diverted. I know it is a
classic and a must read therefore, it is still on the radar)

• A long walk to freedom by Nelson Mandela (did not even start this
and do not own it)

• City of Love and Ashes by Yusuf Idris (Done)

• Tears of the Desert by Halima Bashir (Done- an excellent read!)

• Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Oh god, please save me, in the book
club we came half way through and I just couldn’t take it anymore)

• Ernesto Guevera Che Biography (started and still working on it)


I also was reading the following books just out of the spur of the moment:

• Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevski (I started reading this for
the second time but did not finish because I realized that I had already over
analyzed this book and I perceived that there was nothing new to discover)

• Three Cups of Tea (started on the airplane going to a monitoring
visit but did not finish it)

• My son’s wife (started but got bored and really frustrated)

• The Moral Landscape ( I am currently reading with the intention
of finishing and than giving it as a gift to my friend whose b-day is coming up)

• The Kite Runner (Finished- the beginning is excellent but than
somewhere in the middle the story falls apart and becomes to predictable for me)

• The Iron Wall (Started for the second time but did not finish due
to frustration)

Fortune Cookies

As some might know I really enjoy reading fortune cookies at appropriate times and collecting them. Here is a list of fortune cookie quotes I have collected over the years. Most of them come from a restaurant I like to frequent called Chino Latino. But few are from Chinese take out foods I have ordered over the years.


Next time you get a gut feeling, take an antacid.

Your big break is coming. And a bus will be to blame.

When your mother told you not to be a slut she spoke from experience.

When was his last STD screening anyway?

That new mole isn’t malignant – but if it’s an egg sac laid subcutaneously by a parasite it’s hardly benign.

Bothered by her feminine irritation? Tell her about Summer’s Eve soothing gel.

Well. You certainly did YOUR share to contribute to the restaurant’s liquor revenues.

Why can’t you be more like your sister?

You will soon be crossing warm waters for a fun vacation.

You’ve changed your look.
You’ve changed your hair.
Now change your locks.

He has a blog and you should ask to see it.

That dirt under your date’s fingernails? Looks like a fungal infection.

Stop wasting your time with these people!

Your therapist is crazier than you are.

It’s getting late and your outfit is tired.

Your server has had it with you.

How about a mint?

When he says you make him crazy, believe him.

It’s not you, it’s me.

You are more intuitive than logical. You often learn better b y doing than by theorizing first.

What’s with all the Clay Aiken on your ipod?

The beginning of wisdom starts with deleting your Web history.

Damage control is no longer an option.

Your past is going to catch up with you. Then it will pounce, sink its talons into your back, knock over and set you on fire.

Generosity provides a solid foundation for mindfulness practice.

Memoirs

Sitting at the JFK airport, hearing different languages and seeing all kinds of strange people. Hearing the announcer over speakerphone announcing the flight to a place I never heard in Ghana. Seeing a very long line with German passengers for a boarding line for a plane to Frankfurt Germany. Right at the next gate are more Europeans chatting, laughing and waiting for their flight to Amsterdam. For some reason my flight to Mpls will be at a gate that is among the gates of these international flights. On the overhead flights to destinations such as Prague and Moscow are announced and passengers called. I perceive all of this and think about next summer. Next summer, Alaa, I and my entire family will be going to Bosnia. I can see us already waiting for our international flight to take us across the ocean and ultimately to Sarajevo. We will be surrounded by other Bosnians and we will be so happy to be on vacation, to be together and to be going to see our family and friends and the country that we love so much. It will be Alaa’s first time in Bosnia, and first time to meet most of my family so we will both probably be a bit nervous and wondering how everything will go and what first impressions will be imprinted. We will be looking forward to an amazing vacation and the possibility to visit even Croatia or Turkey. If we were leaving from Chicago during the summer going to Amsterdam, we will be undoubtedly surrounded by other Bosnians, all going to the same ultimate destination. This reminds me of the story I vividly recall to this day. My family and I were going from Chicago to Bosnia many years ago. We were at the gate in Chicago waiting for a flight, and Emina who was just a toddler at that time, turned at one point to my mother and said: “Mom, there are people here who speak the same language as you!” We all burst out laughing at that comment. When I hear people speaking German or Bosnian there is just something that makes me attracted to their language, something is lit up in me and I remember my childhood and start to associate emotions with that language. That is something that I miss the most in English. English is my third language, after Bosnia and German respectively and it is also a language that I started learning when I was in my teens and when most of my childhood had already passed. It is also a foreign language that I was forced to learn with the assumption that it will be the last language forced upon me. As we always assumed that we will stay in the United States, and maybe because of that or maybe because of other reasons, I cannot associate warm, cozy memories and emotions to this language when I hear it. It is not that the language is ugly, it is just maybe because I was not raised here and have not grown up from an early age speaking this language. Or maybe it is just that I was born to be a European my entire life. As my thinking, perceptions and convictions lean more towards how a European would think and not so much how an American would think. I just can’t wait for summer 2011 where I will be surrounded by people that look similar to me and speak the same language. I can’t wait to show Alaa the place I grew up, where I went to school and where I used to play before the war when I was a child. I can’t wait to have ice-cream with him at a place that has been in Sarajevo for ages called “Egypt” and where I used to throw fits at my parents to get me the ice-cream even in the cold winters. There is no ice-cream that compares to that in Egypt, it is made different and there is only one flavor but that flavor cannot be compared to anything else in this world. It is the ice-cream I was searching since my childhood in other places and could not find even a small resemblance. No one knows what it is made of exactly since it is a secret recipe believed to be owned by a man who came from Albania. Thinking about all of this I start to board my plane this evening back home, to Minneapolis.

Personal Statement of Why I Want to go to Medical School

The following is what my habibis advised me to write as a personal statement of why I want to go to medical school. He made my day that time, really he did.


WHAT ABOUT THIS AS LETTER OF WHY YOU WANT TO JOIN MEDICAL SCHOOL ..... MY NAME IS ALMA, I WANTED TO JOIN YOUR SHITTY MEDICAL SCHOOL SO I CAN CURE THE SHIT OF PATIENTS AND IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF THEIR SHITTY LIVES . I ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE THE LOOK ON A PATIENT'S EYES THAT HAS BEEN CURED THANKS TO ME , I THINK THAT THIS IS THE REAL SHIT !!!. I CAN HANDLE ANY KINDA SHIT AND CAN OPERATE UNDER NOMATTER SHITTY CIRCUMSTANCES ... I PERSONALLY THINK THAT I WAS BORN FOR THIS JOB AND IF YOU DON'T ACCEPT ME THEN YOU GUYS MADE THE SHIT HIT THE FAN .... I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO YOUR CRAPPY LETTER TELLING ME THAT I JOINED YOUR PECE OF SHIT SCHOOL I THINK THAT YOUR ACCEPTANCE WILL MAKE MY FREAKEN CRAPPY DAY .. REGARDS , THE FUTURE DR. ALMA

Vacation Pictures

The above pictures were taken at the Savoy Resort in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.



It is always nice to have a geography re-fresher

City of Love and Ashes

I am reading at the moment the City of Love and Ashes by Idris Yusuf. There are a couple of excerpts I thought are very interesting. The first one below I believe describes the city of Cairo with such vivacity and accuracy.

"Cairo's streets were day, its lane dawn, its alleyways jetback night. The many districts -Shubra, Abdin, Sayyida, Zaynab, Old Cairo, al-Azhar, Tulun, Fuad Street, al-Darb al-Ahmar; enromous buildings of five, ten, twenty stories; hundreds of throusands of windows; thousands of doors and doormen; apartment blocks whose residents had gone to sleep, blocks that had not yet slept, and blocks that never slept, people out for the cinemas, people out for a good time on the streets and in the nightclubs; evening dress and afternoon wear, suits, woolens, overcoats, bright colored gowns, beautiful women decorated with powder and lipstick, wrapped in pelts of fox and bear and possibly tiger and lion; red, green, yellow traffic signals and neon lights of all colors; cleaning workers and workers far from clean; black soldiers and white soldiers on bicycles, on vehicles, and on patrol; prodigious bank buildings resting solidly like pyramids of the modern age- the National, the Misr, the Credit Lyonnais, the Arab Nation, the Bank of the Colonies and Overseas; Europeans, Turks, Greeks, people of every faith and color; garbage collectors, hawkers, and beggars; people ending their day and people beginning their day; people dying and children being born; radios broadcasting the latest news, reports, and announcements; prices tumbling, prices rising, and people tumbling and rising without price; drinks being mixed, hashish; customers enticed and bargains struck; negotiations over the formation of the cabinet; horse-cabs waiting, and Cadillacs, and taxis piling up like flies whenever a nightspot disgorges its clientele; drivers heaping curses on each other; greeting eachother, joking with each other; they all have a place to go, and places not to go, places they do not even know. Fawziya and Hamza were stealing into the middle of all this, surrounded by the black night and the light of the cars. What frightens people is seeing this, and living among it, but knowing they have no place in it." p. 114

"The night progresses with no thought for the city, and the city lives with no concerns for the night. Its great buildings appear small, its houses like ants' nests, its streets narrower than the eye of a needle, and people, people, people. Fawziya is at Hamza's side and in his essence, her arm through his arm, her breast close to his, a glitter and a challenge in her eyes all around them, and danger every step."

Medtronic Twin Cities 10 Mile

It looks like I will be running the 10 mile at the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon Sunday October 3rd for the second time. This time, however, my friend Merima has also decided to join me. We have put our group in the lottery and if we are selected that we will be able to run, if not well than we will be missing out. I like our group name I think its super cool, our group name is Bosanceros: Alma i Meri. :) My time last run was 1:41 this time I will need to do better. I was wary of running again this year since last time I found it to be tough, but decided to give it another shot anyways. This means that training will need to begin soon and long runs in the heat.

Med School

It is that time of the year and I am applying to Medical Schools!!! It is a really exciting time for me but it is also so very stressful. I need to get my application in as soon as possible and although I have a draft of my personal statement I still have to modify it and on top of that I need to chose schools. I just started yesterday the primary application process. And have emailed my professors just today. I already received many positive responses. I just want to get into med school and get past this burden of worrying and thinking. Since the competition is so high I will be applying to about 20 allopathic medical schools and about 10 osteopathic medical schools. Hopefully everything will go well and next year I will be writing as a medical student.

Reflections of May 30th through June 5th 2010

I am back from my honeymoon. I must say that I am not so excited to return back, although I glad to see my family again. But coming back without my Alaa, was very difficult to do. And while I was waiting six hours at the airport in Jordan for my connecting flight to New York, I was deeply contemplating to return on one of the many flights back to Cairo that were being announced through the speakers. I was running like a mad woman trying to find a phone booth that works. I finally found the only phone booth that works in the entire airport, only to discover that it does not take any credit cards. Then the challenge was to find a phone card to buy. I finally found a kiosk that sells very expensive phone cards, and on a different occasion due to principal I would not have let someone rip me off. But this occasion I had to call Alaa, I had to hear his voice and I had to make sure that he is ok. So I purchased the phone cards and got through to Alaa to hear his voice for those 5 minutes.

Although I did not discuss this with Alaa on our short phone call, during those long hours at the airport I kept on playing in my mind how things would work out, if I return back to Cairo and call him to pick me up at the airport. I know he would be overjoyed and he would rush to the airport. But where would life go from there? What would I do and what would he do? And would life become boring if we just went to the beaches everyday and go out every night as we used to do for the past three weeks. All of these things were going through my mind the entire time at the airport. At the end I decided not to take any risks and to go with the plan and board my flight to New York. But maybe some day, I will look back and read this entry and think to myself, what if? What if I had returned to Cairo that day? How would our lives be different? Well, I will never know and that is life.

During those amazing three weeks everything went well and it was an amazing time. Both Alaa and I would agree that this time was even more special than our time together back in 2007. As you can imagine I was so nervous to see Alaa after three years! I didn’t know what to expect at the airport. And although I was overjoyed to see him and couldn’t wait, I would be lying if I said that I was not apprehensive. But once I landed, got my bags and walked out of the Sharm El-Sheikh terminal and saw Alaa all smiling and happy, I was taken aback to the time three years ago. And Alaa and I started from where we began a long time ago, as if there were not three years that separated us from each other.

After the airport we went to a small but very nice apartment that Alaa rented for a week. We ended up going to different beaches everyday and went out at night to a different lounge and/or restaurant. The following Saturday it was time to go to Cairo, in order to get married. We reached Cairo very exhausted and checked in to our amazing suite at the Sheraton in downtown Cairo. We had an amazing room, with two balconies, one of which over looked the Nile river, we also had a living room and than the bedroom. That Saturday evening his parents invited us for dinner. As most people eat dinner late, we arrived at his parent’s house at around ten in the evening. We talked about the wedding plans the following two days and we had an amazing Middle Eastern dinner prepared by his mother. By the time we returned back to our hotel room it was early in the morning. As we could not sleep from the anxiety of having to go to the US embassy the next morning in order to get a permission for me to get married in Cairo, we ended up having a class of wine on the balcony overlooking the still alive city below. Usually, drinking a class of wine helps me sleep but apparently that did not work that day. I could not fall asleep due to anticipation and apprehension of the next day.

Wedding

I went from relationship drama in January of 2010 to planning a wedding in June! My life is full of surprises and spontaneity. I am getting married to my soul mate in Egypt this summer. It is going to be an amazing three weeks of my life. Most of it will be a surprise for me anyways, as he is planning the wedding and the rest of my stay there. The only big draw back is that I will not be able to return with my habibi to the US, instead, when I return I will have to petition for him to come. And at that point our fate will depend on someone else.

When I return I will however, put many pictures of my vacation in Egypt. I am really looking forward to everything as I will be with my habibi in a very magical country.

For the majority of our time we will stay in Sharm El-Sheikh but will also be going to stay in Taba, Egypt. Taba lies on the border of Israel and overlooks Jorden, Isreal and Saudi Arabia.

Sarajevo

Oh Sarajevo (a poem)

Those born by you could hardly imagine else other than you Those born not by you could hardly imagine else after meeting you Only a stranger could appreciate your beauty as much as I do Those sunny days of yours warmed by your elevated closeness to the skies Those cool nights of yours aired by the circumventing winds of your valley Only if your mountains moved away could thy protection leave me Those magnificent minarets of yours ever calling me for worship Those dendritic springs of yours that never cease to quentch my thirst Only if I could do miracles could I transform else to you Oh Sarajevo, may I never need to find else other than you ====================== - Kazem O., July 2009

The Siege of Sarajevo

I found this following personal account of a woman in Sarajevo describing her life in war on a website. For this woman it was not an ethnic war, but I am not sure whether I would say the same.

A survivor of the Bosnian war, Elma Dizdar spoke with Zubeida Mustafa on overcoming the traumas of the war. When the Serbian army attacked the capital of Bosnia in April 1992, Elma was a 20-year-old student, studying languages and philosophy at the University of Sarajevo. She and her family did not leave their home throughout the war and braved the hardship of the siege —the longest in history .

Here is Elma’s story:“It was April 6, 1992, Eid for the Muslims of Bosnia, when the Yugoslav army struck. The Serbian soldiers had been taking up position on the hills surrounding Sarajevo since winter and we sensed that something out of the ordinary was taking place. However, we never really anticipated a war. Yugoslavia was a multi-ethnic society but we had never been conscious of our ethnic distinctiveness. Many of my friends were Serbs and Croats with whom I had grown up, and none of us believed that we would fight each other.“When the war came, it was not really an ethnic war. Neither was religion an issue. Under Communism, the Muslims, as well as the Christians, could not practise their faith openly. Hence our parents like many others, never taught their children about religion. They didn’t want to confuse us.“There had been tension and rumours were rife. Kosovo, Croatia, Slovenia had seen fighting, but the Serbs, Croats and Muslims in Bosnia were closely knit and war seemed so remote, at least to me. We didn’t know about the Greater Serbia plan Milosevic had been drawing up.

”When the Yugoslav army attacked, we were shocked beyond belief. I remember being glued to the TV watching the unarmed students marching towards the bridge across the River Miljacka, which separated the city from the hills. Suddenly the shooting started and a young medical student fell dead. She became the first Bosnian victim of the war. Then came the explosions and the firing. The war had started.“Sarajevo was under siege and the people were under attack. We were always haunted by the fear of death. People were being killed and one didn’t know who would be the next victim. Bloodstained streets became a common sight for us. Friends were struck by snipers’ bullets and died before our eyes. Going to the university was an ordeal. It involved an hour’s walk through sniper fire — petrol was a luxury only for senior administrators of the city. The biggest act of kindness to me in those days was being offered a lift by someone in a car — it cut short the time of exposure to the bullets.“We knew that if we tried to create some semblance of normality in our lives it would help us stay sane. Hence this effort to keep up university life, even though most of the faculty had gone. But those who were there went out of their way to help by teaching us and lending their own books to us. The schools were kept going by setting up small classes in sheltered spots in every locality so that the children did not have to go out and get exposed to the snipers. It was the teacher who took the risk and walked miles to reach the children in an improvised school. Yet most people were so gripped by fear and depression that they simply refused to leave their basements where they spent their time round the clock.“To make matters worse, there was no electricity or heating for months at a stretch. The first winter (in 1992) we just burnt whatever we could lay our hands on - even our summer shoes and clothes because it was so cold that it was difficult to believe that the weather would change again to warm our shivering bodies. There was so little food to eat that we were starving and people shriveled away. Whenever the humanitarian aid arrived, it brought hope of more food.“The physical hardship and the constant feeling of fear apart, the worst aspect of the war was that it robbed people of their self-esteem. It was degrading and dehumanizing. It was humiliating to line up for food to be doled out. With the economy totally shattered, no one was paid for the work he did. Yet we continued working because it kept us functional. By focusing on our survival, we could keep ourselves going.

“It might seem strange to the outside world, but the fact is that for us in Sarajevo this was a war to save our city. We were Sarajevans first and Muslims or Serbs or Croats later. That is why it was a multi ethnic group, which defended the city. There were cases of a Serb fighting his own brother in the Yugoslav army. It was a sense of 'belongingness' we all felt for Sarajevo.”“Once the war started and the battle lines were drawn, I never wanted to leave. I could have gone away and made a comfortable life for myself in the West. But I knew it would have created moral dilemmas for me which I would never have resolved. Besides I knew that we were not fighting an ethnic war. The war was not against the Serbs. There were many Serbs on our side too and they fought alongside us. They shared our rage when we discovered that the attacks were directed against the children. How could I go away? I had to stay back and defend the city and help the children survive the trauma. I am proud of my people who survived the horrors of the war and continue to be functional.”

La Lucha

I am sucked into reading the biography of my hero. In fact I would not mind laying around the house reading the biography of Che Ernesto Guevara, all 745 pages of it. I find him so extremely heroical and inspirational. And if you take away the politics of it all and take away whatever political polarity you find yourself on you will see that behind the politics the message, sacrifice, intention and purely the CHARACTER of this man is fascinating.

While I am reading the beginning of his life during childhood and college years I find myself intrigued by all the adventures he went on as a young adult. In fact I am taken back to the movie, Motorcycle Diaries in which his early life was so well portrayed and also by such wonderful landscape. Reading that chapter of his life in the book I can actually imagine it by just thinking about the movie, and it seems even more real.

I am captivated by the fact that he just left off with his friend and started traveling around latin america more often than not scrounging their way through, and sleeping in unimaginable places, hungry, while at other times they managed to become acquaintances of powerful, important people who took them in and showed them a hell of a good time. Sometimes I wish that I was able to do something like that, it would be so wonderful. Although I plan to do something similar when I finish Medical School (became a doctor without borders and help the unprivileged and forgotten). Although I will be doing it as a much older person.

It is very well known that Che Ernesto suffered episodes of severe asthma. Despite that he did not live what I like to call a passive life. He was known from an early age to be daring and fearless, one attribute that the author notes is inherited from his mother who was the same way and a stark contrast to their passive, overly cautious father. One of his fearlessness was eluted to in the book when he jumped into the Amazon river and swam across it! This from a man that has severe asthma, it took him 2 hours to swim across the Amazon, which according to my sources is about 190 km wide. During this episode his friends just stood at the side line screaming at him to come back and not to pursue the danger of swimming across the largest river in the world.

Another interesting fact that intrigued me so far in the book, among so many, is the fact that Che was EXTREMELY well read person. By the time he was 22 years old he had numerous, numerous books, in fact some of the books cited I have never even heard. He read books by french authors such as Victor Hugo or Emile Zolo, in their native tongue. He read poetry, political books, social books, philosophical, you name it he had read it. He read books and poetry from various authors, including french, german, indian and many latin american. His favorite poet was Pablo Naruda.
Well, I must say once again I was astonished, I thought I was well read, but now I see that is nothing compared to Che by the time he was only 22 years old.

One more thing that is a lesson learned is the fact that it is not only important for us to read in order to enlighten our view of the world and in order to have informed, unshakable perspectives, but it is as important to write and reflect on our world and the way we see it. Che for example, always kept a diary, even when he was traveling he would write down everything, he would write poetry, he even wrote a book to his father when he was 20 and way before he became a revolutionary. Now of course all his diaries are published and I can't wait to read them. But do you think Che knew that more than twenty years after his diary will be read by people who revere him? Why did he write, what was the purpose to that? Because every intellectual writes, by writing we learn to communicate, we learn to integrate knowledge in order to shape a perspective and to write it down, we learn how to more effectively express ourselves...



So of course, I have made a list of all the books he has read, many of which I have never heard of and have decided to read them as well, including of course the diaries his father and his Cuban wife Aleida published. Another interesting fact is that Che kept quotes of lines he has read, which is exactly what I have been doing for many years.

The photo above was taken of Che when he was giving a speech in 1964. His speech in itself is captivating, but I love the quote he gives at the end: "Patria o muerte." When people such as me have been displaced from their homeland due to war and when so many have died defending it this particular quote strikes a deep, painful note.

Restless

I feel so incredibly restless today. I can't concentrate even though I still have to study. I barely managed to drag myself to the KAPLAN test center to take a practice MCAT test, after I finished I hurried home. And now I am jumping from one thing to the other, never finishing anything but starting a few things. It makes me mad that I can't concentrate because I have to go through this test and figure out where my mistakes are. I am thinking to skip Yoga tomorrow because I the test date is approaching. And maybe all of this is just my way of exhibiting nervousness for what is to come in January. But this time I just can't afford this nervousness.

I think that this restfulness and unconscious nervousness is just a symptom of my anxiety for the test day. Lately, I have been horrible hurrying everywhere and forgetting things. This is what happens when you try to cheat time and you do not let things progress naturally. It is bad when you are at home and decide to go grocery shopping because you need this and that but once you step into the grocery store you forget why you are there. That is what has frequently been happening to me. About a month or more ago I started writing things down that I needed to buy or things that I needed to do in order not to forget.

Right now I just feel like putting my coat and start walking, where to I don't know I just feel like I need to walk, to exercises my body in order to thing clearly. In fact, maybe I should go to the gym if not to Yoga tomorrow. It might do me some good.

It's already time for the holidays

These holidays came way to fast for me this year. I don't celebrate Christmas but I do celebrate the New Year. And every year that the New Year comes it leaves me reminiscing about the past and I become nostalgic about the past. It makes me reflect on the past year and every time I feel that I have not accomplished enough in the past year. That's why I don't like all these holidays. Last year, though I was in Mexico and at that time I was excited about the new year to come. I guess I was in a new place for the first time and I was curious to learn about their culture, and New Year's traditions that I did not have the time to reflect on myself.

And that's a good thing.

Wednesday just before the day of the Christmas Eve, Minnesota was showered with a snow fall. But the snow this time was actually pleasant, this was mostly because it was not cold outside. On Wednesday I left work early (we received verbal permission from our manager) and I had a couple of things to do. I wanted to finish gift shopping for my family. The gifts are not for Christmas but for our Eid celebration that happened a few weeks back. I always get them something for Eid but this Eid I did not get them anything since I had no money. So I was driving around and was stuck in traffic here in Uptown. It was insane the snow was falling, everyone trying to do their Christmas shopping, that I decided to go back to my apartment and park my car and just walk everyone where I needed to go. That was after I hauled some groceries into my apartment. Than I started walking and my first destination was the Starbucks
on Hennepin. Once I started walking I realized that actually this place was not as close as I thought. After Starbucks I turned around and walked the opposite direction to Victoria's Secret. It was so wonderful walking in the snow and there was something romantic about it. And I can't believe it but I was sad that I did not have someone next to me to share that with, that moment on that day walking in the snow.

Either way, I got all the gifts that I wanted and once I got home I was surprised how tired I felt. I wrapped the gifts and sat down to watch some TV. Ambriz called and even though the roads were really bad outside he wanted to come and see me before he leaves for Denver the next day. When he came we played the Monopoly card game I had bought a few days earlier at a Walgreen's. I was surprised how into the game he became and wanted to beat me so badly. It was very amusing to see him getting worked up about something. Anyways, shortly thereafter he left to drive back through the snow to his house and that was that.

Next day I had to get my car out of the snow and it was a pain in the ***. Before that though, I took the picture you see here from my apartment building. It was nice outside so white and the snow was not yet dirty. That same day, I made it to my parents house and they were happy to see me. I gave them the presents and they were happy about them. Since they did not get me anything (they don't have to, since this is my little thing for Eid) Aida had a shirt that she bought at Arden B for herself and decided to give it to me. Which was really sweet of her. She is a very kind person. The following day we went to see Sherlock Holmes with the whole family. I managed to get the last tickets, as soon as I had paid the cashier he announced to everyone that the show was sold out and it made me feel excited that I had managed to get the last tickets! It was however, difficult to find good seats since the movie theater was completely full even though it was 30 minutes before the start of the movie. Well, I guess it is the busiest day for the movie theater business.

First Snow Storm of the Season

Ok, so they tell us that a huge snow Storm is coming, some say it might be the biggest one in a decade (there I am quoting some morning show whose name I cannot recall right now). And I am stuck at work, I so don't want to be here at the moment. I am super tired and on top of that it is snowing outside and I can't stop thinking about my commute home. I will be stuck here for at least another hour. It is 4:30 now and at 5pm we have a teleconference with a couple of investigators from 5 to 6 pm. Of course a couple of people have already bailed out, ohh its my kids hokey practice today, oh I have a small child at home, and of course some people are out of town. I want ot say; hey I will miss my Yoga practice that I look forward to each week! I hope that the teleconference does not end up going a whole hour. In the mean time it already feels so deserted here, and I can hear people leaving. I guess I am new here anyways maybe I could get away by saying, hey I cant miss Yoga gotta go.

Strengths Finder

My new manager at work made me take this Strengths Finder assessment test. She also gave me the book. The assessment of about 120 phrases one has to answer indicating how much the phrases resembled the person, using descriptors such as "Strongly Agree" "Agree" and "Neutral." The following were my top 5 strengths:

Learner
Achiever
Input
Maximizer
Intellection

Each of these strengths has a description in the book and afterwards for each strengths suggestions are given in what one might excel in or how one should attempt to perfect the strength. When I started reading the description of "Input," the description went something like, "you are a collector you collect things.." I was shocked at that point because it seemed like a stranger was telling me true things about me. Yes, so I am a collector, of books, a collector of postcards and a collector of interesting quotes. And therefore, I would like to share the following quotes.

"Life is a deep sleep, of which love is a sweet dream."

Dr. Chopra says his mother told her two sons that they have two girlfriends-
The goddess of wisdom and the wealth. If they woed the goddess of wisdom, she told them, the goddess of wealth would get jealous and pursue them.

"The superiority of the learned man ove the mere pious is like the superiority of the moon when it is full over all the stars." -The Kuran



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Updates

I feel as if I have not written a long time. But when I logged into the website I saw that my last post was October 25th. So it has not been really that long.

The reason I guess, that I have not written is that I have been busy and also have not been inspired by much lately. I finished the book I was reading (The Road to Mecca) which was very interesting and inspirational. Now I am reading Dr.Chopra's new book "Reinventing the New You, Resurrecting the Soul." I am not far into the book and have not come yet to anything that grips my attention and takes my thoughts away.

I don't like to write to much about myself here, my true feelings I write in my diary. However, here are a couple of superficial updates in my life.

First, I landed a new job at my company. My responsibilities will be very interesting and challenging. I will be a clinical monitor and will be responsible for about 5 to 6 sites across the country. I am working on a study that is top priority to the organization, thus there is visibility at all times. Since I will be managing sites I will also be doing up to 50% of travel. With a minimum of 25%. I am not sure whether to be excited about that or not. Since I have never travelled for business before and that is still going to be the priority of course during those travels. In January in fact, I will be flown to Florida for some training that I missed two months ago when it was taking place in my company. I might get a couple of sites to manage that are located in California, which will mean travelling over there.

Second, as I might have mentioned or maybe not, I have now officially moved to my new apartment and I am loving it. I have not completely settled yet as I need more furniture.

Third, thing that is excited and thinking of it now, I should have included in as No.1. Is that Alaa, my ex might just might be coming here for New Years. He is working in Syria right now and when he returns to Cairo he will go to the American Embassy to see whether they will grant him a visiting visa. I really really hope they do. I want him to come and I missed him so much! He said he will go as soon as he comes back and if they grant it he said he will get the first flight. I have not seen him since Summer of 2007. The other day we spend over 2 hours talking on the phone and could have talked even longer had not the money run out on my second phone card. I hope and hope and hope everything goes well. That would be amazing.

The other thing that is kinda cool is that next week, Saturday my sisters and I will be going to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. All three of us have never gone together before to a concert. Well, we have been to Bosnian concerts but nothing like this. And I am looking forward to it.