Explosion in Beirut Today

This happens way too often that I can't think back to a time when there was no bombing and no problems in Lebanon. Imagine walking or driving your car casually on the road and then, all of sudden:

BOOM.

I was in Beirut with mom and dad today. Imagine my shock when I learned that a car exploded not far from where we were!
When I think about it, I think about the innocent people that were killed. How can someone live on, normally, knowing that he was the reason behind the deaths of innocent poeple?
We continue on with our lives as if nothing is wrong. I am not saying that that is a bad thing; because if we cannot move on than we cannot accomplish anything in life. Not moving on would keep us living in fear; we would be too scared to go to our jobs or take a walk or drive the car...
But the truth is that everything is not okay at all. Just because those events are way too familiar doesn't mean that everything is fine.
I guess, well.. Happy Holidays.

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*Pictures not mine.

Proud For The Day

Today I am happy.
(Alert: cheesy post)

Before we went into our classes this morning, our principal told us that we will learn until the third period, before we all go for a "march" in celebration of Independence Day (which was yesterday- and there was real "marching"). So, at 10:30, instead of having recess, we all stood in lines, and the smaller students were holding flags and had little little ones painted on their faces; some were even wearing army uniforms! (apparently the whole school knew about this except us). And we went, the "Kashaf" (scouts) in front of us, playing their drums.

I'm not usually the person who would talk about how proud she is for being Lebanese, or about how great of a country Lebanon is- I'd usually be the one dreaming about 'upgrading' or leaving (Check: Lebanon: The Controversy). But not today- the spirit was so nice, and I think people need that. Some might say that "we should stop pretending that everything is alright on Independence day" (I read a blog post by someone about it), but I think people- especially the younger kids- need  that sense of affiliation to their country; they need to hold the Lebanese flag and feel proud, even if it's only for this one day. The  truth is that the country is not in it's best conditions, and people, children even, talk about this, about the problems and troubles; the indifferent government... Because that is what they were born to; and it's good to do something else for a change rather than talk about all the problems and the bombing that killed 25 people the other day and the organ trade that happened last week....


I was genuinely happy today. It's activities like this that make that weird and odd sense of pride or happiness or whatever it is wash over me (other activities include watching folklore shows).
(And I wish I had a video to share, because the harmony in which the scout-boys were playing in is crazy!)

If you've never heard the Lebanese anthem, then listen to it! :)

Happy Independence Day- and hopefully the coming days will be better for this country and it's people. :]
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Pictures are not mine; credit to الكشاف المسلم فوج كامد اللوز

Rawafid Graduation Party '13

What Leen & I Did:

• Folded brochures (lots of them) for about 3 hours, starting at 11 AM. Which were later handed out to people

• Decorated the certificates with ribbons
  
  
  
• I also managed to find a book called The Hunger Games Companion by Lois H. Gresh in the library and started reading it. LOVE IT so far! (I'm crazy about The Hunger Games FYI)
  
  
  

Decorations:

• Blue background: 

• Colored ribbons:

• Extra large certificates (love those!):

• BALOOONS:

PARTAY:

1.  This day was very important to me because I tried arabic coffee for the first time. And it tasted hideous. Absolutely hideous. I can't even describe its taste, & I don't know how people drink it! I even made Leen taste it. (She agreed after about 15 minutes of me trying to bribe her into trying it for a gum. She did, and had to get up and spit the coffee lol)
   
   
   
2. Apparently they call the dudes who dress up like this and yell stuff "a'arrafah". The way they were screaming things was funny  lol
   
   
   
3. Grade nine students make their 'le enterance'
   
   
   
4. The audience
   
   
   
5. The two girls in front of me were wearing nice clothes. Really, they were.
   
   
   
6. Little kids danced and stuff. With flowers. And flags. And dresses.
   
   
   
   
7. Daddy. Of course :]
   
   
   
8. Free water bottles (everyone loves free stuff! ha-ha)
   
   
   
9. Lights! Gosh, I remember how hot and scary it was to stand near those fireworks three years ago!
   
   
   
10. CUTIIESSS ❤
    
    
    
11. Throw your hats in the air. ASDFGHJKJALJ ❤
    
    
    
    
    
    
12. Group picture!
    
    
    
13. God, those were yummy
    

Graduation Day is one of the best days of a person's life. Aaaaaaahhhhh! It's so nice :')

Visit to Golden Vision

I  visited Golden Vision on Monday, Wednesday, then Thursday. Golden Vision is a company in Beirut (that has so many rooms but I only spent time in the Graphic Designers' Room and the cafeteria).

Their motto: "Life is a series of images"

The work place is so welcoming, the desks are nice, and the colors of the walls are, too. AND THEY HAVE HUGE iMACS ASDFGHJKL. I'm not fangirling.

The Graphic Designers' space is big and surrounded by glass; and there were those little ants forming a long line on the glass- cuuute!

First Day:

Dad had some work there so Leen & I went with him. We basically just:

• Went through magazines
• Talked
• Saw what the designers were working at
• I talked to Aya, a graphic designer, about her work and stuff
• We Doodled (I drew this nice thing, really, but I think the paper's still in the car)
• Ate (Leen had a fajita and I had Cesar salad)

Second Day:

Dad dropped me off there (he, mom, & another teacher- Miss Nazha) had a workshop or something in Beirut. Anyways, I sat with Samir first, a graphic designer, and he told me about the basics of this program they use to design magazines (InDesign). Graphic designers use three programs in their work:

• Photoshop (for pictures mainly)
• Illustrator (Vectors and logos..)
• InDesign (Magazines, brochures..)

Then I sat with Aya and she talked to me more about InDesign. She showed me the 'before and after' brochures and magazines she was working on for an Iraqi company, and the transformations she did were crazzy! The original brochures/ magazines had jammed up words, ugly colors and pictures, and the transformed products were bright, nice, and comfortable to read. Their work is so nice.

Third Day:

I went to Golden Vision and Aya was going to arrive at 10 but she didn't come cuz she had some things to do. Anyways, I spent my time:

• Reading "Why Am I So Disorganized"; which I'm sure is beneficial but it was kinda boring and had lots of activities

• Sitting beside Samir and looking at the magazine he was working on
• Going through some of the stuff Golden Vision worked on previously. (They use very nice colors and modern designs. I didn't take pics of much stuff though)

• Reading "Faris" magazines with AlBaraa, a cute 7-year old boy (he's too cute, really)

• Drawing and playing tic-tac-toe with AlBaraa (using MEGA PENS). Using those pens is harder than it looks like. Really.

It was nice and fun, and I got to know what graphic designing is really like. Below is a collage from the visit. Yay! :D

(Thank you to everyone at Golden Vision for their time, especially Ousama, Samir, and mostly, Aya. :])

Day @ Library

Leen & I helped organize the books for Rawafid School's new library yesterday (on Sat. Aug. 17th).

Expectation: 

• Sit in the library, surrounded by novels
• Add new titles to our to-read list
• Arrange novels on shelves

Reality: 

• Go to a very small storage room
• Separate old books from new books & school textbooks from other books
• Take regular books to library
• Throw old books into a truck fixed under the window
• Get pants & hands dirty
• Build a huge stack of books (twice, it fell the first time)
• Take lots of pics

So, we didn't exactly help at the library.

Old books (duh!)

Making of the "Sena-Leen Book Tower":

Result:

TA-DA! (I had to hold on to it for fear of having it fall again)

I searched for the world record for the "tallest book towers", & came across a few pretty cool records:

• Tallest Tower of Open Hardcover Books: 42 Books- Set by Andrea Watson & her friend from Canada on March 31st, 2013
• Most Books Stood On At Once: 48 Books- Set by a guy from the USA on March 27th, 2012
• Tallest Book Tower Stacked in A Corner: 107 Books- Set by Ferran Carlos from Spain on April 14th, 2012
• Tallest Book Tower Balanced On Chest: 86 Books- Set by Joshua Mallik from Kuwait on March 29th, 2010
• Tallest Paperback Book Tower: 27.5 inches high- Set by someone from Georgia in the USA on February 13th, 2013

Cool, huh?

So many books were thrown away because they're too old and of no use. We saw a book from the year 1970! Who would need a geography book that old? Most of the old books were from the 90's though. What a waste.

Aaaand... we got free unhealthy treats! :P

And looky looky at what we found! National Geographic Magazines! <3

Leen's actual words: "who, in his right mind, would throw these?" (I later figured out that the magazines were from years 1993 and 1994. But still)

And this basically summarizes our day! How was everyone's weekend?