i clearly understand that there is a great thick line between friends and acquaintances in this world. well okay the line isn't too thick because in my life i suppose people can switch camps rather quickly. but those are a minority. in fact i'm not even sure whether they exist.
in any case, due to the cynical streak in me, the first group in my msn contact list is PEOPLE I ACTUALLY TALK TO. yup i mean, how many out there actually bother msging the 398493284932 people on your msn list?
currently the list stands at 13, and as the name suggests, these are the people who have featured i've been actively talking to on msn for like the past week or so. yes even if these people are on my list i don't talk to them every single day. well to most i do. and so yes the list does get revised from time to time.
now after all that definition, all i wanted to say was, what do i do when that list's online status is 0/13? it means scrolling through my msn list and going through names in other groups in a futile attempt to evoke conversation with anyone. well. i'm blogging now because it's been a futile attempt so.
the 13 of you. you're very valued conversationalists/friends. and you probably know more or less everything happening in my life. until you get moved into the other groups. so do come online more often. especially at times like these when i just need a chat. :)
the holidays have come and gone. like wow a week's gone just like that. but alright i did get my mid term break. on wednesday i slept in till 430 pm. congratulations to me. evenings were mainly spent out as well. which was pretty cool.
studied little. relaxed more. very good.
now the suffering begins.
:: kiathy. 11:17 pm [+] ::
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it feels like the weekend already. but no it's only thursday early morning, or wednesday late night.
just got back from mehmeh's 21st birthday surprise. well surprised she was, we're kinda good huh. managed to get her good friends and family to join us at ps cafe, dempsey, which is really a kinda cool place with cool (read: high) prices . well but the ragout we had was really good.
well. i have a mid term paper tomorrow. feeling totally unfeeling towards it. perhaps it's the open book thing-i generally panic an hour before the paper when it's open book cos i then realise i haven't understood anything. well gonna wake up in 5 hours to attempt to consolidate my learnings.
and i had my first spanish class last night. oh well to be pretty honest, i'm not too thrilled to be heading to barcelona now cos my good friends are gonna be in pretty paris. well to spur myself on i can only tell myself that since i aspire to have an overseas career, living alone's gonna be part of it. so yea. i will make it.
hola :) como es tas? muy bien, y tu? muy bien, tambien, muchas gracias.
today i've realised that, being the person i am, i usually set myself up for more disappointment than necessary.
so from today i shall learn to lower my expectations of everything and everyone.
:: kiathy. 12:24 am [+] ::
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:: Monday, October 01, 2007 ::
rather interesting. and very friedman.
September 30, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
9/11 Is Over
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Not long ago, the satirical newspaper The Onion ran a fake news story that began like this:
“At a well-attended rally in front of his new ground zero headquarters Monday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani officially announced his plan to run for president of 9/11. ‘My fellow citizens of 9/11, today I will make you a promise,’ said Giuliani during his 18-minute announcement speech in front of a charred and torn American flag. ‘As president of 9/11, I will usher in a bold new 9/11 for all.’ If elected, Giuliani would inherit the duties of current 9/11 President George W. Bush, including making grim facial expressions, seeing the world’s conflicts in terms of good and evil, and carrying a bullhorn at all state functions.”
Like all good satire, the story made me both laugh and cry, because it reflected something so true — how much, since 9/11, we’ve become “The United States of Fighting Terrorism.” Times columnists are not allowed to endorse candidates, but there’s no rule against saying who will not get my vote: I will not vote for any candidate running on 9/11. We don’t need another president of 9/11. We need a president for 9/12. I will only vote for the 9/12 candidate.
What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.
It is not that I thought we had new enemies that day and now I don’t. Yes, in the wake of 9/11, we need new precautions, new barriers. But we also need our old habits and sense of openness. For me, the candidate of 9/12 is the one who will not only understand who our enemies are, but who we are.
Before 9/11, the world thought America’s slogan was: “Where anything is possible for anybody.” But that is not our global brand anymore. Our government has been exporting fear, not hope: “Give me your tired, your poor and your fingerprints.”
You may think Guantánamo Bay is a prison camp in Cuba for Al Qaeda terrorists. A lot of the world thinks it’s a place we send visitors who don’t give the right answers at immigration. I will not vote for any candidate who is not committed to dismantling Guantánamo Bay and replacing it with a free field hospital for poor Cubans. Guantánamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty.
Roger Dow, president of the Travel Industry Association, told me that the United States has lost millions of overseas visitors since 9/11 — even though the dollar is weak and America is on sale. “Only the U.S. is losing traveler volume among major countries, which is unheard of in today’s world,” Mr. Dow said.
Total business arrivals to the United States fell by 10 percent over the 2004-5 period alone, while the number of business visitors to Europe grew by 8 percent in that time. The travel industry’s recent Discover America Partnership study concluded that “the U.S. entry process has created a climate of fear and frustration that is turning away foreign business and leisure travelers and hurting America’s image abroad.” Those who don’t visit us, don’t know us.
I’d love to see us salvage something decent in Iraq that might help tilt the Middle East onto a more progressive pathway. That was and is necessary to improve our security. But sometimes the necessary is impossible — and we just can’t keep chasing that rainbow this way.
Look at our infrastructure. It’s not just the bridge that fell in my hometown, Minneapolis. Fly from Zurich’s ultramodern airport to La Guardia’s dump. It is like flying from the Jetsons to the Flintstones. I still can’t get uninterrupted cellphone service between my home in Bethesda and my office in D.C. But I recently bought a pocket cellphone at the Beijing airport and immediately called my wife in Bethesda — crystal clear.
I just attended the China clean car conference, where Chinese automakers were boasting that their 2008 cars will meet “Euro 4” — European Union — emissions standards. We used to be the gold standard. We aren’t anymore. Last July, Microsoft, fed up with American restrictions on importing brain talent, opened its newest software development center in Vancouver. That’s in Canada, folks. If Disney World can remain an open, welcoming place, with increased but invisible security, why can’t America?
We can’t afford to keep being this stupid! We have got to get our groove back. We need a president who will unite us around a common purpose, not a common enemy. Al Qaeda is about 9/11. We are about 9/12, we are about the Fourth of July — which is why I hope that anyone who runs on the 9/11 platform gets trounced.
Kolsom Ahmady lives in a village on the Iran-Iraq border. As a young girl, 40 years ago, she had chosen her intended. Then her elder brother eloped - and she found herself paying for his happiness with her own freedom
Interview by Kameel Ahmady Monday October 1, 2007
Guardian
I have never told anyone this story in its entirety before. My name is Kolsom Ahmady. I don't know how old I am because I never went to school and have lived most my life in a village in Iran called Gardashewan. But I suppose I must be over 50. I was born into a poor family. My father died when I was five, leaving behind four girls and two boys, and we were brought up under the close supervision of our uncles and other family elders.
When I was about 10, Uncle Abdoulla (then the head of the entire Ahmady family) ordered my mother to move to his home; he felt that a widow living alone with her children might bring into question the honour of the whole family. Our new life in the town of Nagheda was great; it was a different world: new things, new clothes - and electricity.
Although there were six families living together and we were under the constant observation of the male elders and our young male cousins, there was always a chance to go outside to fetch drinking water from the nearby pump. That's when we used to flirt with boys, who would wait for us in the evenings. There was no exchange of words but we found other ways to communicate: you could choose your intended by accepting the small bottles of perfume they would offer, or sometimes a carefully waxed apple. They would wax them so that they shined, and this fruit had such a fragrance. We called them shemama.
Life went on this way until we realised that Karim, our oldest brother, was spending more and more time in a village about six or seven hours away, buying livestock to sell on at a profit in the large cities such as Tehran. It was on these trips that Karim fell in love, and asked my uncles to send a messenger to the girl's family to request permission for a marriage. But each time we tried we were turned down - perhaps because they didn't want their daughter to live so far away from them.
After all these negotiations, life returned to normal, until late one evening Karim returned after a few days' absence; however, he was not alone. I would guess the young girl with him, Amina, was around my own age. She looked tired, was soaked through from the rain, and covered all over in thick mud. My mother shouted in happiness, saying: "Karim Jani helgertoa!" ("Karim my son, you have lifted a woman!") - a phrase commonly used when a young man convinces a girl to elope with him. Days passed and many messengers, elders and clergymen were sent to the young bride's house, in order to reach a deal after this small scandal, but her father wanted only one thing: a woman in return for the loss of his daughter - one from our family to marry his eldest son.
In those days, I didn't have a care in the world. I believed in love, but what did I know? I was in love with a boy from the neighbourhood, and all day I would wait for the moment each evening when, with the other girls, I would fetch water from the pump. Once there, I used to see him, waiting for me with a smile, playing with a nicely waxed shemama in his hands. He would follow me almost all the way home - but not getting too close in case my cousins or uncle noticed.
One night, not too long after my brother had brought Amina home, my eldest uncle's wife called to see me. "Amina's family has asked for you," she said. "They want you to marry their eldest son, Qadir." I was shocked, and certainly I didn't want to marry a boy I had no feelings for, someone I didn't even know. I cried for days, but the decision had been made. I didn't dare tell my uncle Abdoulla that I didn't want to marry this man, that I rejected his decision. I tried speaking to his wife, to my mother and all the other female elders, but all knew there was no way around it, however much they might have sympathised with my sadness. The family's "honour" was at stake and a way had to be found to solve this dispute that my brother Karim's elopement had caused. He had found love and happiness, but it appeared that I must sacrifice my own for that. In order to make the marriage halal, I must give up my freedom and my chance for love.
I wasn't in a position to speak to Karim; he was as young as I was and, to be fair, he didn't have much power over the elders' decisions. Finally facing the reality of my situation, I asked Amina how Qadir looked, how old he was, trying to get a picture of the man I would have to spend the rest of my life with. She told me he was much older than me, but she had a thought - her other brother Ali was more handsome and younger. Having no chance to be really free, I sent a message to the male elders that I would only be willing to reconcile the dispute by marrying Ali, and not Qadir. The reply came back: it was their family tradition, the eldest son was to be wed before other sons. Qadir it would be.
No one could help me and I was too terrified to run away with the man I loved, though I thought about it. I sent my younger sister to tell him what was happening. Although I knew he couldn't help me, he returned the message by saying he hoped one day we would be together. (I didn't see him for many years until I met him by chance in a textile store: I walked in, and it turned out he was the owner, but neither of us had anything to say.) There were so many considerations. My mother was stuck between her love for two of her children, and both our futures were at stake.
A few days later, two cars came to the house, bringing Amina's father and a clergyman, and there they married me to Qadir in an Islamic ceremony, with my uncle as my representative and Amina's father as Qadir's. Neither I nor Qadir were present. Half an hour later I was on my way to my new home in the village of Gardashewan. The first time I met Qadir was later that same day, my wedding night. I was so angry, scared and embarrassed that I hardly looked at him.
Well, my life began there. A new life - cleaning up after the animals each morning before the sun rose, and milking large numbers of livestock twice a day. I was supposed to bake bread, clean the house, make blocks of fuel from the animal waste. These were my routines now. The most difficult part of the year was when some of us used to go to the mountains and live in tents for four or five months to graze the livestock in summer pastures, although nowadays I find this a relative freedom from the dull village atmosphere, and the air is fresh. I can relax a bit.
My first child was born a year after my so-called marriage began. I named her Zolegha, and she was followed by another five boys and girls. I watched Zolegha growing up, and every now and then I used to tell her stories from my past, the sweet days back in the town. I knew she had fallen in love with a young man, Ahmet, from the village. But Ahmet had only a mother to speak for him and my husband's family did not approve. In some ways, it was just like it had been for my mother's family after my father died; without a man as a family head, we had no say over our own futures.
Thinking back about what I went through and how I was forced to marry someone I had never met and didn't feel any love for, I couldn't allow the same thing to happen to my daughter some 20 years later. One evening, I asked Zolegha's boyfriend to meet me in a hidden spot outside the village. Zolegha and I went to see him, and I told him there and then that I gave them my blessing. I did this at great risk, but I did not want my daughter to live a loveless life. The three of us knew that Zolegha would not, after that moment, enjoy any support from her family, and that is the decision she made. My only valuable possession was a pair of earrings, which I gave to her that night. Then I sent them off, with my tears flowing down my face. After a few years, I pushed for a reconciliation between our family and Ahmet's; it began with us, the women, who would try to socialise. Eventually, my husband came to accept his daughter again.
Maybe what I did wasn't something women do, or at least not those from the Kurdish tradition in those days. I knew that I would be looked down upon by other families because our girl had run away. I knew it would be hard to take all this tension within the family itself, where men are quick to blame mothers for not raising their daughters "properly". But how could I allow my little girl to suffer in the way I did for so many years?
Looking back on those days, who should we blame for this? My uncles? My brother Karim? Amina? Or the tradition and religion I come from? For so many years I have lived with this man and looked after him, and he looks after me. We are like one unit now. I know how much anger I stored within me for much of that time. But now my oldest uncle has passed away, and recently Amina died of a brain haemorrhage. Having somehow, after all this time, got used to my husband, I guess I found a way to forgive them all.
· Kolsom still lives in the village of Gardashewan near the Iran-Iraq border of Kurdistan.
