The Quality of Information, and Emotional Blackmailing...

So some time ago, I used to have a Facebook account, and then I closed it because I could not take any more.

Recently, and once baby Leo started going to the daycare, I found myself forced to start another Facebook account in order to follow the daycare's Facebook page, the one and only place to follow up on your child at school or at daycare (oh, yes... this is the trend here!).

I only added two of my sister. And ended up having 27 friends so far! Because, well, if some one adds you on Facebook and you do not accept them, this is a reason for hearts to break and for wars to be waged, right?

And through these 27 friends, and since Facebook's stalking nature voluntarily tells you every single tiny click your friends think of making, I have been looking at what my friends are "liking" and what comments they ever post on things out there.

And what I am seeing is driving me CRAZY!

"The spots on this cow spell the name of Allah... press like and comment "subhanAllah"" (Photoshop!)

"A miracle! Allahu-Akbar! This Brazilian Bee's venom cures cancer, but the west is hiding this information because they do not want us to be cured from Cancer! Share this information so that Muslims know what is the cure!" (Because if I have cancer I will travel to Brazil and chase this bee, and once I catch a hive of them I will bring them back home, open my lab and extract the venom!)

"The guy reading Al Fatiha in this video is an American convert who used to be a rock singer, but after he converted and started reciting Quraan production companies closed their doors in his face... Press like and comment "AllahuAkbar" to show that you support him!" (And he turned to be a born Muslim Bosnean guy who was never a rock star and never approached a production company to record his recitations!)

"Do you know that Valentine's day is dedicated to celebrate saint Valentino, a saint who has committed adultery with the emperor's daughter (and in another narration all of the women in the emperor's castle!) and so the emperor has executed him? And the tradition of celebrating this adulterer has started among his lovers... Press like and share if you are against adultery!" (Do I need to say what was Saint. Valentino's story?)

This is making me sick!

I am tired of telling people that:

- Facebook and social media are not sources of information

- Before you post any information, for the love of God, do a quick search in the internet!

- When you spread lame information and make it part of people's "Iman" to celebrate them, you are stabbing Islam in the back!

- Most of the fake information that you read on Facebook and social media are either fabrications, or exaggerations driven by stupid emotions

- Usually, the drive behind these stuff is the "We are the victim Muslim nation voice". If you believe you are a victim them fight through quality knowledge, not through b******t! This only makes you a victim that deserves to remain a victim FOREVER!

- Please, please, please... If you love Allah and your deen be clever... be knowledgeable... do not use easy accessed information to learn... do not spread crappy knowledge that is worth NOTHING... If you really want to learn about a certain issue DO SOME EFFORT! I am not asking you to grab a book and read (that will break your back, I know, and you will die of exhaustion), but please, do a quick internet search, and try -TRY, FOR GOD'S SAKE!- to have a sense for authentic websites.

- If all of the above is about an information about Islam then please... please... please... the Ummah is lost already and is drowning in bad Islamic knowledge... do not spread more of this harmful knowledge... 

Please.... If you love God... Please...

On Fear...

I have never been a fearful person... Before!

I cannot really identify the point in which the transformation happened. I can only say that some five years ago, I was really "Mama Lion Heart" :-D Nothing scared me... neither spider, nor ghosts, nor horror movies, or haunted houses... Nothing! I used watch a horror movie and then go have a sound and peaceful sleep...

May be the death of my grandmother has triggered the change... MAY BE, I say... but I am not sure about anything... My grandma's death story was a sad one, but that is another story...

A couple of days ago I watched a video on a Youtube channel that I like. They bring really interesting subjects and collect information about them and put them in one consistent video for each subject. Some of them are mystery, some of them are strange facts, some of them are about specific unknown historical events. The video I watched -they were two, actually!- were about "Who killed the black Dhalia?" and the other was about the disappearance of the five Sodder family children. Later that night, after I put baby Leo in bed, hubby decided that he will go to bed early. I did some chores, had a hot shower, and then had a cup of tea in the living room. It was not too late but the house was very quiet. And I remembered the videos. In the normal situations, I would think of the details curiously and try to figure out the mystery. That night, I was only scared! I -literally- could not move out of fear! I was longing to be in the bedroom so that I could snuggle next to hubby and feel comforted, but my feet were so heavy, and the distance between the living room and the bed room felt SOOOOOOOOOOO LONG! And there was baby Leo in his room, I was so afraid to go to our bedroom and leave him alone in his bedroom to whatever that I was afraid of! I was thinking to myself that I was being SOOOO silly, but I just could not help it! I was afraid and angry at myself for being afraid at the same time!

The next day I kept thinking: the details are not more severe than what we used to see in the CS TV series... the scene of Short's body was nothing compared to the atrocities that we see on the news every day, what was it that made me so scared? Why? Why I was so afraid like this?

And then it hit me. It was the unsolved mystery. Both stories are real. And both stories are old. The thought that some one can kill some one and cut them into halves, and wash the body of the blood, and lay it posing there in the street and get away with it was VERY disturbing. And the case is old enough to expect that the killer died without being known. Same goes for the disappeared children. Five children have disappeared, and the mother and father died with that lump in their throats. And the case remained a mystery.

To know that such severe things in life can remain unsolved is so scary. This was my suggestion to myself.

But taking this deeper, I noticed that there is always a scary moment whenever I want to open a closed door, specially at night. Literally. When hubby is out, and I and baby Leo are in his room at night, whenever I want to open his room's door I hesitate for a second, and my heart beats violently. I always have a feeling that when I open the door something sudden and scary will happen.

It is the unknown. It is the fact that there is nothing certain. It is the fact that having everything going fine at this moment does not mean at all that things will go fine the next moment. Or after five minutes. It is the fact that if you are driving safely on your way to Aqaba, chatting and laughing with your husband and little girl, anticipating the beautiful Eidul Ad-ha that you will spend together enjoying the sun and shore, this does not mean that a big truck will not hit your car and kill the three of you!

That was my defining point!

The sudden un-anticipated death of my sister in law and her family in a very regular moment that was supposed to be just another moment on their way to the place they have always gone to in order to chill out!

I think that this face to face encounter with the coldness of death has shaken the trust rooted inside me. The trust resulting from everything always turning out to be OK at the end. That experience told me loud and clear that things some times never end up OK. 

Unpredictability.

That was my soft spot. That was the fact that has violently shaken me deeply.

Now I am a scared person. And now I am worried that when the hunting season is open, hubby will either go on hunting trips and sleep out on some nights and I will struggle with my fears, or I will have to overcome my shame and confess this to my husband!

Better than both, I really hope that I will be able to solve this through increasing my Iman! Ya Rabb!...

InshaAllah... Again!

Remember the InshaAllah dialogue?

Let me tell you this short story:

My new manager is an Italian. She is not a Muslim. Since she arrived, she subscribed into the ADSL internet service of one of the biggest providers here in Jordan. It took them forever to install her service, and then it suddenly stopped working. It took them two weeks to decide that it was the telephony box of the building, and two other weeks to fix it. Then the service stopped again suddenly!

It appears that the cables they installed were hanging there in the vacuum outside the toilet windows, where the residents had the option of throwing their garbage of these windows into a huge dumpster in the lowest floor, in the building garage. Whenever they threw bags, they got entangled with my manger's cables, and the cables got cut under the weight. She called the service provider's technicians to fix the problem, they just taped them in a lousy way and kept them dangling there again. She told them that they should be fastened to the wall through a duct or clips, they smiled dumbly and said: "No do not worry they will not be cut again InshaAllah"...

Only the next day, one of the neighbors threw garbage. And the garbage got entangled with the cables! And they got cut again!

She called them again, and had to bribe them so that they won't keep her waiting for another two weeks. And when they came they taped them cables lousily again. She asked them, sarcastically ofcourse: "Is the problem now solved?" They said: "Yes, inshaAllah"... Here she was boiling of anger...

When she told me the story she said: "I wanted very much to tell them: For God's sake leave Allah alone for a minute and let him do the more important things that he does... the cables is your job not Allah's job!"

It was painful!

To see what negative connections have been associated with the word "InshaAllah" is just painful!

I wish I could scream it in the face of every "Sticky" Muslim when he says "InshaAllah" to cover his tardiness: "In Shaa you, not inshaAllah... Allah has left this to you and if it is not done then because you are a lazy bag!"

Toxic Relationships

Ever been in one?

Let me describe the symptoms for you:

- You feel that you have some commitment/obligation towards this person

- This person's existence in your life follows a pattern that he/she decides: either a persisting existence, an occasional existence, most probably depending on their mood

- You feel exhausted directly after a session with this person

- You work hard to stay positive, but this person drains all of your positive energy and gives you waves after waves of toxic negative energy

- If there is a certain setting/place common between you and this intoxicating person, at some point you will feel the urge to avoid this place/setting, be it home, work... etc

- You find yourself obsessing about this intoxicating person when you are alone. You prepare alot of what you want to say, but when you are face to face with them, you keep silent

Recently, I have found myself deeply entangled in such a situation. A friend of mine in work. I knew her back in 2009 when I joined my organization. However, at that time, it was never more than a casual hello and how are you.

At a certain point, I knew about her circumstances: she lost her mom to cancer when she was nine, and after that her father got married only to discover -after so many years- that the step mother was not being good with the children. He then divorced her. At a later stage he got married to another woman, the step mother that my friend is currently living with her family with. My friend is now 37 years old, and not married. She went into several marriage proposals (and even got engaged once), but always things do not work for her.

This lady is nothing like what I would like to consider a "friend". Her thoughts and way of life are way different than mine. I only find myself nodding my head to every thing she says because I know that -due to her circumstances and history- she is extra sensitive. Apparently, this lead her to think that I am "her friend", although all what I am doing is just avoid to piss her off. The rest of colleagues are just being their selves in front of her, and they consider it her problem if she gets pissed off. 

Recently, she started to open up to me. Only because I tolerated her the first time, she always came back to me asking for more. She nitpicks at every behavior from the colleagues and catches the slightest indication for being pissed off. She interprets everything as directed against her. She always finds away to understand a certain behavior as if it was determined to insult her. She complains about everything. About her father and how his feelings are because of his bad health. She is sick of him complaining about his health and how he will die soon (so she comes to complain to me!), she keeps thinking that her step mother intentionally starts fights with her (although if you listen well you will know that she reacts dramatically to very normal things that her step mother says). She has been working for eight years in the same position, and loves to blame the management for not giving her the chance to grow (although she, in fact, moved a one step back in the past, only because she refused to work with a manager that she did not like!). The reality is, she was asked several times to work in other departments to gain more experience, and she refuses because she "does not like the people there". I do a double effort to tolerate her without really absorbing the HUGE amount of negative vibes that she throws in my way!

Very recently, she once came to me really devastated. I sat with her and talked to her about certain things about her life that have to change. Mainly, her relationship with God. After that, she started praying more systematically, and eventually have committed to prayer, mashaAllah.

But the thing I was afraid of has happened: she started looking at me as the savior. She comes to see me every break time. She visits me in my office room during working hours. When we go home she keeps texting me, and because I know what she is like I always made an effort to reply to her messages on time and -regardless of how exhausted I feel- add smileys and write creative sentences just so that I do not give her the feeling that she is ignored. My son, then, got sick. And for a week I was out of office. I had to fight with baby Leo every couple of hours to take the medicine, and then absorb the meltdown after forcing him to take the it. I was exhausted all the time, so some times I only replied to her messages after I got baby Leo to sleep and collapse on the couch, and some times I totally forgot to do. And honestly I had no energy to come up with cheerful messages so I replied just answering her specific questions.

And I came back to work.

And she was stiffened with me. And I was really stressed. I felt the stress right from the moment I had to delay her first message, because I knew she will get upset. But when I saw how she treated me at work I was really angry inside. Add to that: that she is surrounding me with all sorts of things/gifts that she even makes me guilty! I once metioned that I wish I would be the sort of person who grows plants. She brought me a plant at office. And she keeps checking if I watered it or not. As if I need an additional chore at office! Not only that, she brought me a plant for home, that turned out to need to be planted outside! And when I told her that I do not have a place outside, she was upset and asked me to put it on the window edge of the kitchen! When I told her that we do not open the shades because people on the street will then be able to look into our kitchen, she insisted on going over every window of the house to check if I can put the plant there! I told her that this will be an additional chore that I am honestly UNABLE to take, she was really upset. I, eventually, accepted her gift and took it to my father in law so that he can plant it in the garden! The other day we were chatting with friends and we spoke about making cakes, I do not know how my comment about (betty croker) cakes turned out to be a request from me to her asking her to bake a cake! I was about to shout!

Oh, and in addition to all of that, she was once whining to me about her marriage projects that were never fulfilled, when I said that it is not her fault, and that it is only about Naseeb, and made the mistake of telling her -in a joking manner!- that if baby Leo was older I would have taken her as a bride for him, and since that moment, she started calling me "my mother in law" and calling baby Leo "hubby"! This is driving me insane, because now I feel that this innocent joke has tackled a soft spot in her heart, and now she is adopting this story to live the feeling of being a "daughter in law"! She never lets an occasion pass without reminding me that she is my hypothetical "daughter in law"!

What I am feeling now is that enough is enough. I am really EXHAUSTED with this burden. And I have made the decision: I have to cut out relationships that entangle me and draw me back. I am a person who needs all of my energy to keep my home healthy and happy, which is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT with the burdens of working, being a housewife, and a mother. My son needs me and he has all the right to have me with him, while I am in a good condition. That enables me to be a giving loving mother.

The question is: if damage has happened, will it be my guilt? Will it be my burden? Shall I live with the feeling of being guilty for the rest of my life?

And how to avoid this?

I Have Been Tagged!

So the sweet Zara has tagged me in the Liebster award! :-)

It has been a L.O.O.O.N.G time since I did this sort of games on the bloggosphere :-) I remember doing it back when I used to blog in the 2006/2007 period (Oh! My! God! That was 9-10 years ago!) and I used to enjoy it.

And now I am back to the fun and learning! :-)

The rules are simple:

1. Recognise 5 other bloggers 
2. Answer 11 questions that Zara has asked me
3. Tell readers 11 facts about me
4. Ask 11 more questions to the bloggers I have nominated
5. Link this post back to Zara

Hmmm... I am not sure about who among bloggers will really bother to read... I am new here and I have a some what "little" pick up... but I will give it a try!

I nominate:

Daisee Deb from Simple Virtues 

Jamila from Teaching Simplified (and other interesting blogs as well :-) )  

The Saudi Yankee Doodle

Debbie Qalballah from the Qalballah Place

The Artsy Fartsy Muslimah

What are the 11 things that you want to know about me?

Ok, let's see!

1. I am advancing through to my 33rd birthday. And I am happy about my age :-D

2. I got married at a relatively advanced age, I was 28 years and a half. And the process of choosing my hubby looked as the invention of the nano-technology to my family. They reached a state where they thought that I didn't want to get married.

3. I am a feminist. But not an extreme one :-)

4. I love cooking and making desserts. Baking is a passion for me!

5. At school, I was a nerd. A rebellion nerd, in fact.

6. At school, I was a famous actor :-) I always had something to present on the school stage during open days.

7. I am known to trip alot. During university years, I tripped and fell head over heels three times.

8. I cannot resist chocolaty things. Not chocolate itself, but: chocolate cakes, chocolate biscuits... etc

9. I am a romantic person. I cry VERY easily. A touching scene will twitch my lips and get my tears down.

10. I made several attempts to sew classic historical style dresses to wear for certain occasions, but my mom and sisters threatened me that if I show up at an occasion dressed like that they will pretend that they do not know me :-D

11. I have some weird obsessions. One of them is an obsession with old style names. I -for example- like the name "Dawlat Khan" for females, and "Jaafar" for males. Each time I am about to name a child my family get worried.

And now, to the questions that Zara has asked me :-)

1. What makes you happy? Alot of things! The most? Well, whispering a prayer and feeling that Allah is listening to me, and seeing one of my family happy because of something I did.
2. What is your favourite time of year? I have something to love about each time of the year. But my slightly more favorite time could be summer nights when children have no schools and relatives who are outside are coming back and staying at their families' houses.
3. What career did you want as a child? Oh! A doctor of course! LOL... And then an astronaut!
4. When do you go to bed? Some time between 10:00 PM and 11:30 PM
5. Syrian refugees, what do you think should happen? Uh.... I really do not know! Every one holding a gun in Syria should be killed (by a nuclear bomb) and the refugees should be returned back to Syria. If any of the refugees' brain was scanned and intentions of holding weapons or anything explosive were found, he should be killed as well. Only peaceful people should go back to Syria. And it should be ruled by a good well committee. May be the care bears should ruin Syria. Some times I feel it is hopeless!
6. Favourite hot drink? Creamy coffee!
7. A perfect world would include what? Lots of books, and lots of time to read them. And lots of baked goodies. And some thing like a deodorant that you spray on your head to remove stinky thoughts.
8. Your best hair product? ummm... home prepared olive oil with honey? :-D
9. A resturaunt you love? Chillie Ways Jordan is my all time favourite! Marj Alhamam branch specifically has witnessed very important phases of my life. And very beautiful memories as well :-)
10. Go to perfume. For practical use, I love the Rasasi brand perfumes. They are very affordable, and they have very special fragrances that last really long. But for specialties? Tendre Poison is my all time favorite!
    
11. Name one thing you love about yourself? ummmmmmmmmm.... may be that I am a patient person?

 And now we go to the difficult part.... what do I want to ask my tagged bloggers?

1. Are you a breakfast person or a no-breakfast person?

2. My favorite moment of the day is............... 

3. Your favorite girl name and boy name?

4. Please name a book that you will never forget.

5. What do you look at when you want to pick a book to buy?

6. Who is the TV or cinema character that you once wanted to be like (anime are allowed :-))?

7. Have you ever had a tree house as a child?

8. What comic magazines did you read as a child?

9. Can you share a fond school memory with us? 

10. I like to match purse, watch and shoes. Is there anything about the way you dress that you want matched?

11. What crafts do you love to spend your time on once you have some?

Thank you for taking the time to read :-) 

Now let me go and tell Zara that I have done my home work :-)