Hey All!
Apologies for the unannounced hiatus. I’ve been busy with exams. Just a quick one to share iPhone photos of the metro (Instagrammed, yeah!)
Hope you like them.
Oh by the way, were you wondering why I called this post “The metro and my thoughts”? Because public transport is a great place for getting your thoughts together. And if the ride is long, it’s great for clearing out your email inbox too. Trust me on this one, lol.
At the moment, anywhere you look you find flame trees in full bloom. It’s a beautiful sight. Below are some pics of the same. 
Bursting into a riot of colour!
New beginnings
When bloom and bud live peacefully together.
Patch of blue sky
A wall of orange.
Dubai Marina
Mamzar Beach
A view of the Burj ul Arab, the 7 star hotel
Burj Khalifa!
Pool @ the Address Hotel, Dubai
They’re yummy, they’re healthy (well, kinda), they take as little as 10 minutes to prepare, and the kids love them! And they’re perfect for school snack boxes and they will be ‘allowed’ (don’t ask, my kids can’t take anything remotely resembling junk food)! So why don’t I make them more often?
Crumbly, melt in the mouth, aromatic…
Top 5 reasons why I don’t bake oatmeal cookies more often.
1. Time. Who has the time? Between school runs, homework sessions where I basically pull at my hair, and studies (my own), can I actually find time to do (unnecessary) recreational baking? Yeah, maybe once in a while. But I’d much rather get dinner ready, know what I mean?
2. I end up eating a few… not a great idea! When you have a jar of fresh, warm, home-baked cookies on the premises, it gets just that bit harder to resist.
3. Lazy? When I finally get some time, I don’t want to go in the kitchen. I could read, write or simply play with the girls.
4. I don’t have any more cinnamon powder. Ha! Yeah, this is easily rectifiable, but until I grind some cinnamon (I’m not crazy about the store-bought variety) I have a perfect excuse!
5. I have to study! Currently I am doing the following:
S- Sleeping
T- Talking
U- Unlimited texting
D- Daydreaming
Y- Yawning.
I gotta get the act together. Right after I finish this blog post. Er.
PS: My point and shoot canon with a big lens (Powershot sx30is, the very baby which has taken all pics on this blog) is not great with indoor light. I’d love a Canon EOS DSLR for such days. Someday…
PPS: If you want to bake them, this recipe is nice, but I don’t follow it exactly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4_X2qwLpqk
Originally written for Gulf News “Off the Cuff”: http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/there-is-life-after-facebook-1.1179484
Dear Facebook,
You asked what’s on my mind. Well, there is a lot that we need to talk about. It’s been about three years since I logged into my account. When I quit Facebook, family and friends were not pleased. They thought I was being antisocial, and such a spoilsport! However, I bowed out of the online social party as gracefully as I could.
At first it seemed like there was nothing left in life. I missed checking the ‘likes’, friend requests and friends’ updates every few minutes. Life felt … empty. But when the initial feeling of being cut off from the world was conquered I realised I had so much more time, and I was so productive!
I didn’t have to log on to Facebook every few minutes, and I didn’t need to know what other people were up to. I was suddenly getting some actual work done! It was possible.
A life without an over-reliance on Facebook was possible. Life could go on without needing to know how much weight so-and-so in New York had gained post-baby, or without knowing how magnificent a party had been, or without knowing what someone else’s children were up to.
Without getting a number of ‘likes’ on my oh-so-witty and well-thought-out status updates, and without getting a bunch of compliments on my latest pictures, as much as I would have liked to deny it, life really could go on.
And quite smoothly too.
Life after you, Facebook, had an odd satisfaction to it, a secure feeling that the world did not know what I was up to. There were people who totally ridiculed my idea of not using you, Facebook but I was more in touch with my real friends than ever before.
Those who wanted to find me landed on my blog, and we became even better friends than before. I became accessible and available to a selected few, who knew how to reach me, and who knew that my email messages to them were not broadcast conversations over status updates and pictures, and were real chats.
Slowly, Facebook, I forgot about you. I had a life that did not need to be lived online. I had family and friends in person, and admittedly on whatsapp and email. And I wouldn’t even have written to you today if a colleague hadn’t asked for my Facebook ID. When I tell people I’m not on Facebook, they generally have two reactions.
One group thinks I am a totally antisocial person. The second group thinks I am an eccentric woman who probably has an interesting story to tell about why I quit you.
Well, Facebook, the truth couldn’t be farther away. I’m just a normal human being who decided to quit you because I was growing addicted to you.
When I told my colleague I wasn’t on you, she insisted that it was good to have a Facebook account, and that one can stay in touch with one’s friends. Yes, Facebook, I miss that.
I also miss being able to share my articles to a great number of people in a single click, and I miss sharing thought-provoking quotes and the like. To my colleague I mumbled something along the lines of “Yeah, Facebook’s really cool that way,” and wondered if I would ever join you again.
Join you again? Is that even possible, or likely? Well, anything is possible. Maybe I could join you and keep myself hidden with the privacy settings you thankfully worked out and add a total of say, 15-20 people?
Wouldn’t I look like a completely unpopular moron if I didn’t have at least 200 ‘friends’? And then if I didn’t share any of my own pictures, I would definitely look like a snoopy observer of others’ pictures. And Facebook, is it not all about letting others know how wonderful and awesome I am, and what an exciting life I live?
To be honest though, I’m nothing spectacular. I’m just an average person with an average life, but all my friends on Facebook look like they have the most amazing lives in the world.
Look at me. I sound like I am in a ‘Facebook frenzy’ already. Perhaps I’ll wait a little more before I can join you again. In the meantime, I’ll work on living a real life away from the carefully crafted perfection of the internet.
This ayah is one of the most beautiful in the Quran. May Allah envelop us in His mercy. Amen.
Feel free to share, print, pass the love around! [Click to get a larger image]
Hopelessness. A yearning that’s never going to end.
Enough.
Playing with fonts…
It’s time to break free,
It’s time to hope again,
It’s time to remember that you will rise again,
It’s time to move on, time to forget,
It’s time to know that life’s not always a scary threat,
It’s time to rekindle friendships, it’s time to stop being cynical,
Your deep mistrust in everyone is almost comical,
Remember, each person is not alive just to tear you apart,
It’s time to perceive life with an open heart,
It would be nice if you stopped wasting time,
Use the days wisely, you are in your prime,
There’s only so much you can mope,
Wherefore is that lovely thing called hope?
Adversity? Why does it scare you so?
That’s how life is, don’t you know?
If you will, with Allah’s will, defeat it!
Don’t let it kill your very spirit,
Come on, my friend, you know it’s time to embrace life once more,
Don’t miss the opportunities knocking at your door!
What’s happened, has happened, and may well scar you forever,
But to let it stop you from everything — now that’s not exactly clever!
So you’re a fool sometimes, and you’ve messed up pretty bad,
Seriously, those are experiences everyone’s had!
So please be happy, and please remember to smile,
Learn to hope again, and not just for a little while!
