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Archive for April 2007

The Mean Factor in Professional Emails

In Life on April 30, 2007 at 9:56 pm

Writing professionally is a skill that requires observation and training. It’s about choosing the right words that are neither slang nor too common and conveying a clear message in a formal tone.

Lately, I have come to the realization that I write excellent professional emails. If I were to rate my formal correspondence talents on a scale from one to ten, I would probably give myself an eight and a half and I would suffix it with the words “being modest.” To tell the truth, I don’t think it is that challenging to write a professional email; just steer away from “dude” and “like” and remember to capitalize the beginnings of sentences.

I know that’s an oversimplification of a complicated process (to some) but that’s the bottom line. Then there are different types of professional emails; explanatory emails, introductory emails, request emails, and what have you. However, I seem to be a pro when it comes to mean emails.

And I don’t mean explicitly mean emails that read “We will not do business with you anymore because you suck.” I mean really mean and implicit and hurtful and some times even offensive emails. This will make me look very unsympathetic to you, but let me explain how I discovered this hidden talent in me.

A couple of months ago, a colleague of mine asked me how to write a mean email. I said I do not know exactly and that there isn’t a manual for writing these kinds of emails. Then he told me what the content of the email was (he intended to send it to someone who was late in delivering some service) and asked me to “make it cruel.” But he stressed that he wanted it to be “professionally harsh,” and I made it so. Why I complied and why he was so satisfied with the outcome is beyond me.

Today, a friend of mine sent me an email message that he intends to send to his former employers. These people have not yet sent him a relieving letter, even after eleven months of the termination of his contract with them. He was understandably angry, and his message was telling of that. He asked for my opinion on it and asked me to proof-read it. To my horror, I told him “You can make it equally mean but not so explicitly.” I expect the monstrous edited version from him soon.

Am I doing mean emails for a living now? Do I derive some sort of demented pleasure from writing words which are cold and pinching? Do I compensate for being a nice person (some will laugh at this) with writing parallels of absolute ruthlessness?

I shudder to think of answers to these questions.

Football: Soccer: Calcio: فطبول

In Life, Picturesque on April 28, 2007 at 8:16 pm

Soccer Tournament

The object is to kick the ball into the net
L’obiettivo è calciare la palla in rete

الهدف أن تشوط الطابة في الشبكة

Veiled Women and Religion

In Opinion on April 25, 2007 at 4:19 pm

The issue of the veil never ceases to fascinate people from other cultures, nor does it stop claiming centre stage in any talk show or social gathering that aim to be tagged controversial. You may want to think of it in this context: it’s an instant attention grabber.

Whenever I meet new people, I am instantly asked some questions about religion or the veil. I understand why this happens, of course: people see a veiled woman and they instantly believe that she is religious or quite literate in religion. But isn’t this assumption fallacious in many cases?

Many times a woman wears the veil due to social or cultural pressure. In some families, wearing the veil is the normal consequence of puberty or bodily maturity. In some geographical locations, wearing a veil is simply the way women dress. In others, it is considered improper not to wear a veil. The reasons are many and diverse, and only a portion of them has to do with religious beliefs.

I am usually annoyed when people ask me religious questions. It feels as though I have this preacher duty to do, and I simply hate preaching. Asking me about religion also puts me under a lot of pressure to give out the “correct answer” which, more often than not, I do not have. To avoid any misunderstandings, I always start my answer (if I decide to answer) with announcing that “I am not an authority on religion” and then I proceed to explaining my personal beliefs about the question asked. I always urge people to ask an expert if they are really interested in investigating things, or to do their own research.

Even if I meet the investigative type of people, like journalists or writers, who are interested in one activity I have, I still get the usual questions on religion and the veil. I am usually asked why I wear the veil, and why other Muslims don’t, and if it is wrong not to wear it, etc.

I resent these questions because they stereotype me as being a religious person and I am not really religious. Why I wear the veil is a question worthy of asking, of course, but it is also private. If it’s the charm of my contradictions that people are interested in, well then, why don’t they ask about that?

Questions on religion and the veil also take away from the “point” I am being met or interviewed for. It’s almost like meeting someone who wears socks and who’s also a distinguished artist. Instead of paying attention to the art, many people would focus on the socks and forget that their main interest in this person is de fact, the art. Not the socks.

What’s Your Visual DNA? I Know Mine!

In Life on April 22, 2007 at 7:44 pm

My best friend sent me a link to the most amazing and fun quiz ever! This is a quiz that lets you choose visual representations of your likes, dislikes, and opinions, and then gives you the results in an ultra-awesome visual way!

Art is...

Thats gross...

I did the quiz at work today and I so so so loved it! It was all entirely true. I am a Sofisticat, Junkie Monkey, Touchy-Feely, Escape Artist. Tadaaa!

My Mood

My Fun

My Love

My Habits

To add some more “hip” factor to the quiz, it measures up your choices and tells you how they compare to other people’s. My choices were mostly not very popular — which was super! The site also matches you up with users (you can register for free) who have had similar results. Let there be light.

Compare choices

What are you waiting for? Discover your visual DNA now!

If This Isn’t Weird, I Do Not Know What Is

In T Play Box on April 21, 2007 at 11:00 pm

So my last post, which was a shot at expressing my “amusement” at the utterly dull Miss Egypt 2007 promo, turned out to be a big thing. But considering the weirdness levels in my life and the numerous, numerous times I had to ask myself “what are the odds for THAT to happen?,” I am surprised only a shwai.

First of all, the post was confusing to some people. I think they attached too much meaning to it. I only meant to “do” one of the contestants for Miss Egypt 2007. You see, they ran that promo on one of the gazillion music satellite stations and it bored me to death. How on earth are people supposed to pick ONE contestant out of the, what 20?, nesting dolls that look the same, talk the same, and basically do not stand out from one another?

And they say beauty paginates are “also about character.” I don’t even want to get to that.

Second of all, a dear Egyptian friend of mine is actually friends with contestant number four. Yup. The number I picked randomly to star in my pathetic sketch is an actual human being that one of my friends is friends with. He asked me if I was targeting her in specific, I said of course I wasn’t. It was a random choice…

… Or was it?

May all the weirdness in my life never cease to be. This is better than movies!

Running for Miss Egypt 2007

In T Play Box on April 20, 2007 at 12:17 pm

(Girl appears on screen and pictures of her wearing tons of makeup and huge fake-diamond earrings flash across the screen. She is wearing jeans and a skimpy top. She starts talking in a sweet voice).
Hi ismi Tololy Tutunai wi 3andi 22 sana… *leans to the side a little bit*

Badres wi bashtaghal fi Jordan wi I love my job… *plays with her hair*

Ba7eb el eraya wel shopping wel ketaba awi. Wi kaman ba7eb el ‘3ona wel ra2s geddan… *tilts head*

Vote for me, cody arba3a… *does number four with her fingers, very delicately*

Società Dante Alighieri: Upcoming Italian Events in Amman

In Italiano on April 19, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Società Dante Alighieri

April is one busy month for italophiles in Jordan. Società Dante Alighieri (located in Jabal Al Lweibdeh) is organizing several events, here is the first one:

MARTEDI’ 24 APRILE 2007

ALLE ORE 18:00

Sala della Biblioteca

Incontro con la Responsabile dell’Ufficio Studi RAI per la promozione della lingua italiana

Dott.ssa LOREDANA CORNERO:

La RAI per la lingua italiana

RAI-it.gif

And the second event “Cineclub 2007” is basically a screening of four Italian movies in the library of la Dante at 7:30 PM. The movies and the dates are as follows:

22 aprile N io e Napoleone

25 aprile Marianna Ucrìa

30 aprile Un tè con Mussolini

02 maggio La seconda notte di nozze

The movies will only be subtitled in Italian, which might repel many people from coming to watch them if they do not know any Italian. But to encourage you, if you do come and find me there sit next to me and I’ll be your free interpreter.

Pictures of Various Insects

In Picturesque on April 18, 2007 at 10:28 pm

I am not a big fan of insects myself but I am sure some of you are. These creatures cannot be trusted for all we know– they are quick, some of them can fly, some others are hairy, and they all have a horrible sense of direction. You might need to look hard to find them in the following pictures:

Beatles

Scorpio

Huge Butterfly

Worm to go

Adiga Psatha: The Circassian Blog Aggregator

In Metablog on April 17, 2007 at 8:09 pm

“Aren’t blogs great?” — That’s what I was thinking today while browsing some really useful blogs. Maybe the only thing that’s hotter than a single blog is a blog aggregator and a link directory in one place. That’s where you feel you’re in an all-you-can-eat-yummy-yum buffet.

One aspiring blog aggregator/link directory is Adiga Psatha. The name literally means Circassian Talk. What the aggregator does is simple but very important: it aggregates the feeds of blogs maintained by Circassians (or hybrids like myself), classifies them acording to country, features links to Adiga-relevant sites, and even has pictures and designs made by/about Circassians.

Blogging is certainly one way to salvage the remains of a great culture and to connect its people together. Adiga Psatha was launched in December, 2006 by Jad Madi. And thanks to the help of Zaid Dodokh, it now features the largest Adiga music library online. There is also an Adiga Psatha flickr group where pictures of the dances, costumes, and families are published.

On top of all that, there is a very cute logo of a man wearing a qalbaq and holding a pen in his hand:

Adiga Psatha Logo

The Butt of The Joke

In Love on April 15, 2007 at 3:22 pm

At 8:10 AM today, Havana Brown and I were just out of the garage. It was a funny-feeling morning and my eyes were still burning and dry. Seconds later I had not yet driven past the main entrance of home when I saw Tsuki-san! 

I stopped in the middle of the street, oblivious to the possibility that a neighbor’s car or a school bus just might make an appearance at that moment, and just stared at the cat. A million thoughts raced through my head; maybe dad thought it was Tsuki-san who was dead in the street yesterday — I will definitely give him the bath I put off last week — Will throw away the cat food he doesn’t like — Must fix him — I shouldn’t have cried so much yesterday after all — Ha Ha. 

I opened the door and got halfway out of the car, and called on to him… Tsuki… Tsuki. He just looked at me. Then I looked at his tail and for a split second I saw my ecstasy physically dissolve in front of my eyes. It wasn’t Tsuki after all, it was a cat that looked exactly like him but had a shorter tail. 

I think if the dead do come back, we would all love them very much more than before. But that would also make us the butt of the joke.

In Memoriam Tsuki-san

In Love on April 14, 2007 at 3:48 pm

Today Tsuki-san, my cat, died. He was only two years old. Someone ran him over with their car.

Tsuki-san is Japanese for Mr.Moon. My brother rescued Tsuki-san from the dumpster when he was a few days old, back in April 2005. Tsuki was so tiny and so cold when I got him, his umbilical cord had not fallen out yet and his eyes were still shut.

Tsuki-san

I fed him and I took care of him. I would often wake up in the night to change his warm water bottles. And I remember how happy I was when he opened his little eyes for the first time. Of course then I had to make sure they didn’t get clogged and a daily routine of dabbing them with moist and warm cotton pads was followed for some time.

Tsuki-san

Tsuki-san used to sleep next to me during my many siestas. Most of the time it was he who did the sleeping because I would stay up for fear I might move or turn and annoy him. He looked so peaceful when he was asleep. I will miss that.

Tsuki-san

He was very playful and had an abnormally long tail which was his favorite toy. He never really appreciated catnip or his black necklace/collar, much less the bell on it. He also liked playing with paper balls, and he never bit a child pulling him from the tail. His character was very distinct from all my previous cats; I loved him the most.

Tsuki-san

Tsuki-san

Tsuki liked to climb into my humungous closet and to play with the bags on the closet floor and with whatever items of clothing he could find dangling. There was this one time when he fell asleep inside the closet and was locked in until the following morning. I don’t think he tried to get into my closet after that.

Tsuki-san

When he got bigger and taller (he was a very tall cat), I could no longer give him baths on my own. He particularly detested the bathroom for this reason and he could tell that he was going to be wetted, shampooed, and rubbed whenever my brother and I gave him that “look.” He would then avoid us, but we would get him anyway.

Tsuki-san

I think Tsuki-san was probably the dirtiest cat I ever had. He really could not care less about his personal hygiene unless it was mating season (and I make no guesses in this field). He was specifically filthy in the winter and I would not clean him for fear he might catch a cold.

Tsuki-san

Around September 2006, Tsuki got himself a girlfriend. This was a smaller female cat who followed him everywhere he went and even shared his food. I had doubts about the nature of their relationship but I later discovered it was entirely platonic – Tsuki may have been a bad boy, but he was no pedophile.

Tsuki-san

My bonding with Tsuki-san was the highlight of any day during the past two years. I miss him terribly and I am deeply saddened by his premature death. I am not sure if there is a cat paradise somewhere in the heavens, but I know Tsuki would probably not want to go there. He would want to spend eternity sleeping on my red couch or stealing food from mom’s pots. That’s my boy.

Tsuki-san is now remembered vividly in the following posts:

Chicken skin

And now we feast

Lazy cat who has no keys

Untitled

Cute little monstress

Oddly enough

Feline related entry: Fall from Grace

Feline related entry: Viva Tsuki-san


Tsuki-san

Requiescant in pace, beloved friend.

Drastic Times: Can You Park Like This?

In Picturesque on April 13, 2007 at 11:07 am

Drastic times call for drastic measures.

Crazy Parking!

Important note: This is not my car and I do not know whose car is it.

Here’s a Very Simple Post

In T Play Box on April 12, 2007 at 4:24 pm

- I -

Lately I’ve been wanting to be simple.
I don’t know why but I know I like to experiment.
This is not a poem. It’s also not a song.

- II -

Now I have to go to class and I don’t feel like it.
The professor is an idiot.
He reminds me of the naked king.
So pumped up and yet so worthless.

- III -

Not so long ago I posted in a forum.
I posted my opinions in God and people.
The moderator deleted the post.
He/she/it asked me not to talk about religion.
There was a rule, not to discuss religion.
I wasn’t discussing religion. God is not religion.

- IV -

Yesterday a classmate told me something.
She told me I had strange opinions.
I asked her what she meant by that.
She said she feels I am mysterious and exotic.
It was because I showed the girls my hair.
I told them they “don’t want to know what I believe in.”
What marvels? What strange opinions?
Playful hair maybe. Yeah.

- V -

Once I wondered if I would turn into an orange.
It’s an old post, you can dig it up.
Now I wonder if I am, at all.
Thinking is overrated, passion is underrated.
And too much literature spoils the mind.
Also cigarettes and perfume.

Who Else Is Waiting for Godot?

In Literature on April 12, 2007 at 1:44 pm

From Act I of Waiting for Godot by Beckett; read and think of what the lines mean. Remember, we are not told who Godot is and why the two main characters Estragon and Vladimir are waiting for it/him/her:

Pozzo: You took me for Godot.
Estragon: Oh no, sir, not for an instant, sir.
Pozzo: Who is he?
Vladimir: Oh, he’s a . . . he’s a kind of acquaintence.
Estragon: Nothing of the kind, we hardly know him.
Vladimir: True. . . we don’t know him very well… but all the same
Estragon: Personally I wouldn’t even know him if I saw him.

Waiting for Godot

I found the play quite revealing and deep. Evidently, people have different opinions on what it means and who the characters represent. It certainly helps to give it an existentialist reading; perhaps Godot is God, perhaps he will never show up, perhaps we humans so need to believe in a supernatural power that we create it, imagine it, and then wait for it to intervene in our lives while it simply cannot be bothered.

On Raising University Tuition Fees in Jordan and Poor Planning

In Jordan on April 11, 2007 at 11:13 am

There is a lot of talk lately about a governmental intention to raise the tuition fees in public universities in Jordan. But while officials in the Ministry of Higher Education dismiss the rumours, many in Jordan have learned through experience that if a rumour is officially dismissed, it will soon turn into reality.

Interestingly, a more controversial measure was taken very recently to provide financial support to public universities in the country. A one JD tax was forced on anyone who had a landline or a cell phone (paid once a year). That means/meant the following:
1- The grand majority of Jordanians currently pay a tax to support public higher education.

2- A large number of these taxpayers do not have access to this public higher education, and they admit their sons and daughters to private universities or to no universities at all. This means they are forced to pay to teach other people’s sons and daughters when they should not.

3- Most of these taxpayers are forced to pay the same tax two or three times, or more. If a person has a landline and a cell phone, he or she will pay the tax twice. His or her sons and daughters who have cell phones will also pay the same tax regardless of their age.

4- Cell phone owners in Jordan already pay 16% sales tax and an “additional” 4.5% tax, which totals 20.5%.* Now it is safe to add this infamous one JD tax to the total cost.

5- This would certainly generate more money for public universities. Public universities already received revenue up to 20-25 million JD from the ambiguous “additional fees” that students had to pay at the start of each semester in 2006.* The revenue generated by the one JD tax, however, is no more than four million JD.** This means that a ridiculous amount of 400,000 JD will go to each of the ten public universities we have.

6- The Ministry of Finance took the trouble to dig as far back as 1985 to find a law to shave money off Jordanians. The law is called: قانون الرسوم الإضافية للجامعات الأردنية رقم (4) لسنة 1985 (Additional Fees Law no.4 for Jordanian Universities, 1985). Not only that, the Ministry took the time to “interpret” the word “phone” in the law and to finally deduce that it is a word generic enough to include cell phones along with landlines.

7- If the Ministry of Higher Education eventually decides that the old-new law does not help it generate enough money to fill the monetary cracks in public universities (and it doesn’t), it just might raise tuition fees.

8- The Ministry of Higher Education finds it easier to collaborate with the Ministry of Finance to impose taxes or to act on its own and raise tuition fees, all instant quick-money solutions, instead of designing long-term revenue-generating projects and plans. If nothing else, this indicates poor planning and poor supervision over the financial assets of public universities in Jordan.

To return to the main topic of this post, even back in July 2006 there was talk about raising tuition fees for public universities. The rumours were dismissed and the Ministry said there will be no changes over the fees in 2006. Well, now we’re in 2007, I wonder if any surprises await us this year.

An important question is this: How much more can the Jordanian citizen pay to get some education? And, even more importantly, is the quality of education provided in public universities in Jordan really worth all this money the citizens are forced to invest?

* Al Rai newspaper
** Al Ghad newspaper

Pictures From Concerto Duo Degani-Rucli

In Italiano, Picturesque on April 9, 2007 at 10:09 pm

The concerto Duo Degani-Rucli was a pleasure to attend last week. The Italian Embassy did a better job this time organizing the event than it did last time, back in November I believe, for the conerto Quartetto di Cremona. Practice does make perfect. I was particularly satisfied that a program of the concert was handed out to everyone, an obvious step forward to mend a past error.

I had the pleasure of meeting the ambassador and his wife, Dr.Emanuele Manzitti, Prof. Maria Laura Iasci and even a reader of my blog — all during the break! My Italian was not astounding, I must confess, but I still managed to hold reasonable conversation. I really enjoyed the concert and loved the music; it is so refreshing to listen to music so refined from time to time.

I’m uploading the pictures that were not totally shaken and ruined, for your eyes only:

Concerto Duo Degani-Rucli 3

Concerto Duo Degani-Rucli 2

Concerto Duo Degani-Rucli 1

300: What a Load of Crap!

In Bits & pieces on April 5, 2007 at 9:18 pm

Yes. It is the Era of Movie Reviews here at Tololy’s Box. Popcorn and coke for the critic, per favore.

I came upon the good fortune of having a sister who knew someone who had a pirated copy of 300, the movie about the Greco-Persian war. So I watched the movie with my sister two nights ago and, to make this review even more worthy of your attention, I watched 300 again last night because again I was lucky enough to have a brother who got another pirated copy of the same film.

Theatrics and difficult English aside, the movie was horrible. It lacked edge, it lacked proper build-up, and the dialogue was sickeningly cheesy. This was no epic movie (I know it is based on a graphic novel, yada yada), this was a joke.

The highlight of 300 was, however, the Persian god-king Xerxes. What an exotic, statuesque figure! What marvels he had in his private chambers on the battlefield! This moment of admiration gone, the movie did feature way too many sculptured abdomens. The irony here is that the six-packs did not make it any more interesting.

My rating of 300 is that it is a “bleh movie.” For additional enjoyment, click here to watch a montage of the “Gayest. Movie. Ever.”

Did Hannibal Really Rise?

In Bits & pieces on April 4, 2007 at 10:40 pm

This past week I got the chance to watch Hannibal Rising, a prequel to the legendary movie cycle on Dr.Hannibal Lecter. This will be a brief review, and I will cut to the chase.

I had previously expressed my excitement that a new movie on Lecter was out. The movie’s plot, however, was a bit far-fetched. Like the critic I cited said, it “doesn’t hesitate to avail itself of whatever historical boogeyman it needs to advance the plot, whether it’s Klaus Barbie’s exportation of French children to Auschwitz or the loss of one’s entire family in Hiroshima.” Hannibal Rising contained enough violence, sadism, and sheer evil to sustain a person a lifetime. I must confess the movie was, in my estimation, the darkest and most graphic story of Lecter.

Hannibal Rising was basically about the metamorphosis of Hannibal from a normal boy into the cannibalistic serial killer we have all known him to be. Good movie if you are interested in the shaping of this violent, yet sophisticated, mind.

Women Bloggers Attacked: The Kathy Sierra File

In Wonder Woman on April 1, 2007 at 4:00 pm

Disturbing as they are in real life, harassment and sexism towards women have extended online as another face of one ugly coin. Certainly it comes as no surprise to note or learn that women online face problems unique to the fact that they are women, aside from the ones they already share with their male counterparts.

Via Salon.com, I read a story about renowned blogger Kathy Sierra who runs a blog called Creating Passionate Users, and who is suffering from a mass-cyber-attack staged by a group of misogynist perverts.

The story on Kathy Sierra, written under the title Men who hate women on the Web, is a narration of the blogger’s ordeal now that is she is targeted by an army of people that hate her simply for being a woman, and make no secret of it.

Drawing on my own experience online and on the stalking episode I previously mentioned, it is now even more evident to me how women are discriminated against online (as well as offline). The very nature of the discourse with a woman in a chat room is significantly different from that with a man (I played being both). It follows logically that women are targeted in different ways than men and that, often, attacks against women take a sexual-violent nature.

Take for example the Kathy Sierra case; she has had someone post this on her blog: “fuck off you boring slut… i hope someone slits your throat and cums down your gob.” Later on, famous bloggers took part in the “game” and comments poured in with crystal-clear threats of hanging Kathy, suffocating Kathy, beating Kathy, and sexually humiliating Kathy. Not to forget the photoshopped pictures of the blogger in dark-fetishistic situations.

So where does this leave us, women bloggers? In Kathy’s own words, she says

I do not want to be part of a culture–the Blogosphere–where this is considered acceptable. Where the price for being a blogger is Kevlar-coated skin and daughters who are tough enough to not have their “widdy biddy sensibilities offended” when they see their own mother Photoshopped into nothing more than an objectified sexual orifice, possibly suffocated as part of some sexual fetish.

In our conservative culture, everyone knows that any event of this type would escalate to a dangerous pitch. Simply put, Arab hackers probably first hunt for pictures on a girl’s PC, and then use them. Also, probably every woman blogger has received some sort of a threat, a special request, or a sexist remark. I know I have, and I know many who have received the same.

This issue at hand is not a single case. It is not about those “morally corrupt” American men who attacked a similarly “morally corrupt” American woman, as many men and women in cyber and real Arabia would quickly announce. This is not a phenomenon exclusive to a single society. This is a problem rooted deeply in our mentalities as people. Again I say, as people, not animals. Actually wait, I take that back. I never heard a male dog call a female dog “bitch.” My bad.

I am usually particularly offended by the men who think they have discovered a shortcut to heaven when they squeeze out the magical pseudo-solution “If women didn’t get that much exposure, then nothing would have happened.” What does a blogger like me do, according to these people? Crawl under a man-shaped shadow and wither? Go offline and write on papyrus?

Indeed, bad things are bound to happen, and they could happen to anyone. However, it is undeniable that when they happen to women, they are a lot worse. The social and psychological scars they leave are often irrecoverable. It’s technically “keeping women in their right place” principle that dictates this manifestation of a deeper social dysfunction.