I'm done (almost)!

Ouf! I’m done! The semester is over! I can finally enjoy the feelings of not having something on the back of your mind, the feeling of nothing to worry about even if it’s only for two weeks since I will be taking the summer session!

Looking back at this semester, there are some things that I would have done differently and many other things that I would not change them an inch. I learned a lot academically, but I learned more on a personal level. I met several good people that I now consider as true friends, and I met a lot of people who are “double-faced”. I experienced feelings of extreme ecstasy as well as feelings of extreme depression. I made new relations and I broke other few.

More importantly is that it’s one more semester that is behind me and I have one few ahead of me.

Looking forward for relative peace of mind that the vacation promises as and I really need to refuel for the summer session!

Hopeless (1)

“Where am I? What is this around my waste?” These were Hakim’s last words before his body went into pieces, killing in the process tens of innocent lives.

Hakim was born in one of the slums of Casablanca. His dad was a shoemaker who could barely afford the basic needs of his family of eight. Hakim is the eldest among his siblings. As years went by, Hakim’s father fell more and more sick and as a result Hakim had to drop out of school in order to provide for his family for whom he felt responsible. Hakim tried his hand in a lot od different little jobs but always ended either quitting or fired. Faced to this situation, he decided to take on the great journey. He decided to immigrate illegally to the other side, the other continent, the Eldorado. Hakim managed to gather the money he would need to pay the passer, the person who owns a small both that would take him to the Promised Land where in order to gather money you just have to kneel. Hakim left for Tangier where he met the passer who took him to a safe house, a kind of waiting area for illegal immigrants. Hakim always dreamed to be sitting in a waiting area but what he imagined as a kid is far from what he is now living as a responsible adult. Hakim’s concept of the waiting area was that of a VIP lounge where he could smoke his Cuban cigars while waiting for his private jet to take him from London to New York and then to Tokyo. As he was daydreaming about his fantasies, the passer showed up and told everyone that their time has come and that they would set sail very early next morning, he then proceeded to collect the money. As Hakim handed the money to the passer he felt as if he already put one foot in his dream land. He slept that night with great hope in his heart. He woke up with much anger and disgust. Disgust at himself for being such a naïve person. Disgust at himself for failing his family. What happened is that the passer turned out to be a con artist who took the money and fled…he also took with him hope out of Hakim’s heart. Hakim felt so much despair that he did not even attempt to neither look for the passer nor complain to the police. Instead he went back to his family’s house with much anger and shame. For the rest of his short life, Hakim could never look for more than a glimpse in his mother’s eyes...

To be continued

El Morro

Revealing thoughts

Everyone ought to worship God according to his own inclinations, and not to be
constrained by force.

Flavius Josephus, Life

Jewish-Roman historian & turncoat (37 AD - 100 AD)

Check Point

Loin du stress de la vie quotidienne et plongé dans le stress de la vie virtuelle je me suis mis à contempler ce qu’à été ma vie jusqu’à là. Non je ne fais pas de crise de conscience. J’ai rien à me reprocher mais c’est toujours rafraîchissent de faire un constat de ce qu’à été la vie jusqu’à là. Qui sait ça pourrait permettre d’éviter de refaire les mêmes erreurs du passé…une fois de plus. Lmouhim, je disais que j’étais entrain de réaliser un constat sur mes 23 années écoulées. Résultats ? Pas très satisfaisant mais pas aussi catastrophique que je ne le pensais avant. Faut savoir relativiser de temps à autre ça aide à limiter l’auto-flagellation…mais passant comme même je veux pas vous saoulez avec mes déambules fantaisistes…

L’autre jour j’étais entrain de jouer du billard avec des amis quand soudain elle était apparut de je ne sais quel horizon. Le pire c’est qu’elle était venue me faire la bise comme si de rien n’était. Comme si tous ce qui s’est passé ne s’est vraiment passé que dans ma cervelle. Heureusement, qu’il y avait mes amis qui étaient aussi surpris que moi…on le voyait l’effet surprise clairement sur Omar qui avait la bouche entre ouverte pour une assez longue période. Mis au pied du mur, j’ai rien su faire comme si ça ne me concernait pas. J’étais comme un policier entrain de constater les dégâts d’un accident grave…seulement je constatais les dégâts que j’ai causé…un peu de débris parmi tant d’autre que j’ai généré pendant mes 23 ans de vie sur terre.

Mais croyez-moi, le bilan c’est vraiment pas aussi terrible que ça...vue de mon angle !

El Morro

Just my luck

And it is still rolling! My bad luck span is far from over. The latest on the victim’s list is my laptop. Yes my dear laptop, with all the music, pictures, movies, and important stuff, is gone. Gone is not the most appropriate word, I should probably say broken, literally broken that is. How did it happen? Doesn’t really matter right now the fact is, I don’t have a laptop anymore. It really sucks considering that I used it a lot in my school (programming major) and to communicate with friends and family. Now the only thing that I am wondering about is what will be next? After my glasses, my hand, my foot, and now my laptop (oh and my girlfriend in between), I can’t imagine anything worse (I don’t want to imagine anything worse). I guess I just have to wait and see what happens next…ah if only I could control the future!

El Morro

Snowflakes!

It is that time of the year again when you just feel like staying in the warmth of your room and drink some hot chocolate while listening to good music. Yes, it is winter in Ifrane and it is snowing. As I was sitting by my room’s window watching the snowflakes fall down graciously and then disappear gradually into the ground I thought to myself that each snowflake went individually through an amazing journey to finally become one snowflake among a million other insignificant snowflakes of which we quickly grow weary and wish for the sun to shine again to take them all away. Then it hit me! There are billions of people on this planet who went through amazing journeys during the course of their lives and maybe if we take them individually they will be equally interesting. However, when put in the middle of his/her peers, a person is just as meaningless as a snowflake. So what can a person do to stand out and not be a snowflake among others anymore? I honestly don’t have an answer to this question but I am sure that there are people who definitely found the answer throughout history. These people are the ones that we learn about in history books and that shaped our present and maybe even our future. Their influence leaped over the boundaries of time to shape our present day lives in all its aspects. It’s only when you stand out that you achieve eternity! Don’t be a snowflake because one day or another the sun will shine again and you will melt down and be forgotten!

El Morro

A keychain story

Everyone who knows me very well knows that I have had the same keychain (among other things) for over a decade now (the word decade makes me feel actually old). The keychain in question had the name of my brother Rabie inscribed on it as well as Ayat Al Korsi (verses from the Coran). That keychain traveled with me everywhere I went. It’s a sort of a lucky charm to me. I can’t imagine loosing it one day.

I lost my keychain last weekend in a nightclub in Ifrane. I was having fun until I realized that my keychain was not in my pocket. I started looking for it everywhere. I didn’t leave no stone (bottle) unturned. I didn’t find my keychain. That was definitely a party pooper for me. I sat down on the couch of our table looking brokenhearted. Everybody started asking what was wrong and I had to explain to each one what it was all about and that it’s not just a keychain. Few minutes later I regained hope of finding it since everybody in the nightclub was looking for the “damn thing” as Lamiaa put it. However it was not found. I returned to campus really upset despite the amounts of free alcohol that I was offered as a consolation “prize”.

As I was walking up the stairs of y building towards my room I realized that I also lost the keys to my room. My roommate was in the room however so I didn’t mind that. I walked in (the door was open) and I sat down on my bed looking down at the previously flooded floor of my room. I stared and stared at a shiny point on the floor without realizing what it was. I didn’t care at that point. I lost something very important to me that night and I just didn’t care if my room went up in flames for all that I care. But then it hit me that my roommate was sleeping when I left the room and that I usually lock the door behind me when I am leaving. The door was open. I didn’t lock it. What’s that bright thing on the floor? I took a step towards it and I removed the piece of cloth that was partially covering it. It was my keychain! I found my keychain!

…that was close!

El Morro

La Poisse

It all began last Friday at 4 AM in the morning. I woke up to the sound of security guys knocking at my door. At first I thought they were coming to inspect my room for drugs and alcohol but it turned out to be something else…totally different but just as equally upsetting. “Come in!” I yelled at whoever was knocking. One of the security guys let himself in and I couldn’t help it then but notice that his shoes were making some kind of a weird sound. I look on the floor but all I could see was the ceiling. Hein? How could that be? Maybe I was too sleepy. “Really am I this disoriented?” I thought to myself. It turned out that I was really looking at the reflection of the ceiling on the water that has flooded my room. First reaction was to reach underneath my bed and reach for the most precious thing I got…my laptop. Thank god it was still working despite the amounts of water it swallowed…those guys at IBM make good laptops. I will spare you the details of what happened next but in a nutshell I ended up spending the night as a refugee in some other building. The next day my room was all clean…very clean but also very smelly because of the wet carpet.

Then later on Friday I was trying to clean my glasses when all of a sudden they broke into two pieces. I stared at them thinking to myself that I was lucky to carry with my an extra pair.

Sunday I went to play some basketball, everything was going well until I tried to reach for that rebound when the ball slammed against my fingers making them look kind of funny. I didn’t think of it much then and continued playing. Another rebound and my second pair glasses, the last ones, fell and instantly broke into three pieces!!! That’s not good.

Monday I couldn’t see more than three feet ahead of me but I could really feel a pain in my right hand’s fingers. I tried to overlook it but it was just too much. By 2 PM I was in an ambulance going to Fes for some X-rays. The good thing is that I didn’t break anything the bad thing is that I sprained my fingers so bad that they would need at least three weeks to heal.

Today, as I was walking from downtown to campus, I sprained my ankle…Just as simple as that.

So in five days I found myself half-blind, handicapped (right hand and right foot), and with a smelly room from where I am writing these few lines.

And that’s the definition of la poisse if you are not a French speaker.

Mon signe chinois

Je viens de découvrir que mon signe chinois c'est en fait le cochon. J’ai tout de suite googlé pour savoir ce que cela veut dire et voilà ce que j'ai trouvé :

Honnête et droit, vous avancez dans la vie comme un bulldozer tranquille. Vous êtes hostile au mensonge, à l'hypocrisie et aux comportements artificiels. S'il vous arrive de faire une chose répréhensible, vous vous en voulez terriblement et ressentez durant longtemps un sentiment de culpabilité. Pour vos proches et vos amis, vous vous montrez généreux et serviable. Parfois même un peu trop car vous ne savez pas dire non et d'aucuns n'hésiteront pas à profiter de votre apparente bonhomie pour essayer de vous rouler. Mais sous votre peau épaisse se cache une détermination farouche à faire respecter votre loi, et nul ne parviendra à vous imposer un état de fait auquel vous ne souscrivez pas. C'est en solitaire que vous prenez vos décisions et en solitaire également que vous assumez vos éventuels échecs. Vous n'êtes pas du genre à rejeter la faute sur les autres. En cas d'hostilité, vous vous repliez sur vous-même en attendant que l'orage passe. On vous reprochera peut-être de préférer la fuite à l'affrontement, mais les éclats de voix, les bagarres et les rapports de force vous répugnent. Si l'on vous met au pied du mur, sans d'autre issue que l'affrontement, vous devenez un adversaire implacable et violent. Derrière une apparence débonnaire, vous dissimulez une sensibilité à fleur de peau et une âme de jouisseur. Votre goût du plaisir font de vous un expert en amour, surtout physique...

Nass El Ghywane - Lahmami

Especially dedicated to Omar!

Happy New Year