Yield

The yield today was a translation of 3 verses, 215 lines in total. Still a long way.

Although today my fast was broken by "unfortunate" circumstances, but I insist on completing the ritual as usual. I knew there was some devil around. I think my emotional life ups and downs made me unstable to the point that I might get swept away by the slightest action of seduction... or might I be the seducer? I don't know. I don't know anything.

After this work with the translation, I have to cope as usual with the transliteration, and apparently these 3 verses shall be tricky because I wrote them down in a haste. I can barely read my own handwriting in these 3!

Luckily to me, it was a quiet day at work, except of some... events... that were not bad but quite disturbing. I think I need a long nap just like I did yesterday.

Tired...

My work of translation was not much today. Barely one page just before I leave the office. I discovered I forgot my wallet in the office today as well! Hope I won't need it soon. Most of the time I was coping with the transliteration of 3 pages. Sometimes reading your own handwriting is hard, so hard that you won't believe that you wrote this or that!!!

Coping my ear at the time being with painkillers, taking them after the fast break of course, and let's not forget the ear drops. No pain so far but an annoying feeling of some liquid inside. Sometimes I feel I'm out of balance when I walk which makes me afraid of some deeper inflammations of the mid-ear.

I feel so tired inside... I feel the urge to write down a new poem but I can't find the words I need... and there is a devil playing in my mind... but I just can't find what is he doing for sure... flirtatious mood, yet so tired of life... a mix of feelings... . But I know what I really want right now. A rocking chair, a nice balcony, a pipe to smoke (though I'm not a smoker) and some green cover in front of you. That would be a great mood for writing I presume. But I must get back to reality now and worry about my wallet for the time being and tomorrow is going to be quite busy day for sure since my co-worker won't be there. I'm totally forgetting myself as being a "lab technician" but rather I'm a "paper boy" who does all the paper work. Ah well... I had my lesson in here. Get your money and leave. There is no point in working and trying to elevate the level of intelligence or life in this place. Your life, starts after work, with all the inspiration you can get and all the work you can do for yourself; Photography, painting, writing... etc. If you can do these IN and DURING your work, then you have a nice job I presume!

Speaking of photography, I'm thinking and trying to find a suitable spots and objects to take photos for. I've been reading some documents about photography and I'm trying to test what I read. No luck yet with finding one though.

Paper Work!

Starting to fast, and planning to keep it on for 2 months and then Ramadhan shall arrive when I have to fast as well, so complete 3 months are there. Of course, I don't think I might go all the way, there might be some days when I wouldn't be able to fast or anything, before Ramadhan that is.

At work, I'm sick of the paper work. I'm wondering still about my certificate whether it is a B.Sc. in Physics or some certificate in adminstrative skills. Worst of all, sometimes I just do not understand any word in any paper. I can say that I'm tired of paper work more than doing my own job on detectors.

The day went well though as being the first day for fasting, in this unmerciful heat, yet, the weird part is I miss the pepsi can in my hand while I work on writing or translating. I have plenty of time now after coming back home but not in mood to work at the moment. I translated 5 verses so far (that is 120 lines) and long way to go! I think my translation is becoming more rapid and I get some tricks out of my pocket when it comes to words not used before. I spent something around 15 minutes to translate the 5th verse today before going out of work. The other hand work is the transliteration, which I'm using OpenOffice for. I have to "replace" some characters after finishing every verse since I can't assign shortcuts for special characters in OpenOffice.

Well, I think it is time to feed the cat outside, and take a shower or so... or I might not, since my ear is giving me some early alarms of possible pains coming on the way... just hope if they would go completely...

Disappointment!

Disappointment... it is very disappointing. I just discovered that my abilities to sketch is not up to the task... at all.

I might have done some ornamentations or so, but sketching figured, specially in a away similar to those used in medieval manuscripts, is out of my skills. I asked my brother though to see if he can do something similar but he did not answer me at all on MSN!

As for the time being I'm continuing my work with the translation as I finished 2 verses and finished the transliteration for the 1st and the 2nd verses. OpenOffice might have created some problems for me with the foreign letters (foreign: not used in the English basic letters), I might have to switch back to Word, which is something I don't like at all. I might consider doing a manuscript-like effect without doing any sketches for persons. I will concentrate on translating and transliterating for the time being.

It's Thursday, and few minutes from now I will be out of this place and back home to have a nap and get out at night. I'm planning to start fasting starting from Friday, and with this hot weather it is really a challenge. Also, I might be able to go to Failaka island again this Friday (and hopefully I'll be fasting as well!!). So much pressure as it might seem... fasting and hot weather and also cruising out in this hot weather... well... fasting is about challenge in the first place.

If you ask why I'm gona start fasting, well, it is the month of Rajab now in the lunar calendar, and it is said fasting in this month has lot of rewards... not physical rewards that is! I did the same already for 2 months + Ramadhan (that is 3 months in total) in hot summer days last year, so hopefully I shall continue on the same path this year. Wish me luck!

The Engine Started!

Finally, I got the guts to start with the translation. Here, I'm going to adapt a new technique in working. I won't translate the whole thing and then do th transliteration, but instead, translate one verse (24 lines) and do its transliteration after. As for the new words that accompany the process of the translation, I think I shall add them later on, specially that I don't know what shall be the future of my homepage in GeoCities.

I don't have much time to type this and translate more but at least I finished translating the first verse in the story, and I'm going to do the transliteration right away, or back at home, when I'm in mood! My process was so slow that I took one hour to translate the 24 lines! I think after some time and work, everything shall be flowing easily I presume.... Hopefully!

Yulina!

Well, maybe I should work on my translation instead of writing down this blog, but I can't. I'm so tired and I don't know how am I going to drive back home. 30 minutes are left to leave this place.

By coincedence I was googling around, and I came over pictures for contestants in Miss Deaf World. Well, as always with the beauties, my eyes kept open wide. But mostly, one angel caught my eye, and that would be Yulina Arslanova. She's Russian, but her looks and the last name aren't so Russian I believe. Arslan is deemed as a turkic name, which reminds me of the king Alp Arslan, the father of Malikshah I of the Seljuks in the medieval times. I translated one true story that happened during his reign when he organized with the help of his Vizier, Nizam-e-Mulk, a debate that lasted for 3 days between the Shiite and Sunni scholars in Baghdad. The story was entitled: The Conference of Baghdad's Ulema. REMEMBER, YOU CAN READ THE STORY FOR FREE AS I TRANSLATED IT IN SACRED-TEXTS.COM. DO NOT BUY ANY TRANSLATION UNDER MY NAME FROM ANY PUBLISHERS ONLINE. THEY DID NOT GET ANY AUTHORIZATION FOR THIS JOB.

Back to the deaf world. As I said afore, I think she has the Turkic looks. She was entitled 2nd Vicemiss, I don't know what they do but anyway, I think it is nice for a man to see beautiful faces like this from time to time (specially if he's a single). I think deafness, specially for a female, adds some sort of special beauty into the character. Maybe it is because it's almost impossible to catch a woman in a silent state? I don't know, but deaf girls surely have something special in my eyes.

My ear scares me off from time to time with excessive wax. This is disgusting you say right now, I know. But think of it the medical way. No pains since last Saturday but I'm afraid to touch it and clean it the usual way I do. I have a plan to go and check for another clean up if possible, providing that the inflammation had gone already.

I'm yawning so hard already, so I might not do anything useful at home.... as usual....

Busy Busy Busy

It was one hard day at work... running here and there (and yesterday was as well) and checking with the latest updates and news at work.

I hate Mondays, but not because they are the first day of work, 'cos they aren't here, but most of problems happen in this day. I had a plan to help my friend by making a contact to someone and pray for some hope that I would get a feedback, but since it is Monday, the person I need to talk to was not there. Also, while I was driving my car today and listening to the Superstation RKFM, I heard DJ Linda propose a question in some contest, and she mentioned a website, I really wanted to answer that question but I couldn't follow her with the website and google did not help either. Monday!

While I was googling though, I found out that many people hated the superstation RKFM and some hated Linda herself... I wonder why is that? I mean, well, to me I'm not a radio fan, and not a fan of Superstation as well, since they play lot of music that just don't meet my mental needs, but I would say such bad things or express my anger in that hideous way all over the blogs! Would I? I hate when they play rock music and rap in the early hours of the morning when people are just waking up and need something soothing to let them smile by early morning while they go to hell... OPS sorry, to work. After all, I see that Linda is doing her best... I don't know her personally, but I think she's funny at sometimes.

I still feel some guilt after leaving the little kitty on the grass jut before the Marina Crescent in front of the seashore facade... the looks in the mother's eyes, that stopped to be available all the time in our yard, were like talking to me and say "where did you take my son?" I hate this feeling, but then I reckon back and convince myself that I would feel worse, if he died in front of me without being able to do anything to protect him.

Ironically and amazingly today amid the busy ups and downs at work, I was sparked with a thought of a poem and I typed it down. I submitted the poem as a contest entry for the Bite-Size contest in www.writing.com. I called it "With The Voice of The Silence" and it is a short dedication to all the deaf friends I knew online so far.

Mysterious...

My brain works in a mysterious way right now, but in my own language that means only in a spontaneous way. I have some ideas for some story beginnings, and the rest might come later I believe, but I'm hesitating. Should I start writing something now without doing anything in the translation process of this loooooong part of Alexander's story? And what about the sketch I'm supposed to do? Things are clashing in my mind and can't find an answer. On the other hand, I'm kind of convinced that I should start on something... otherwise the thread of ideas might cut off and I won't find something to write. At least I'll pen some stuff down. One of the ideas is to write something about my dear friend, who works with a bunch of stupids (don't worry, it's something regular in Kuwait).

My ear is, as it seems, doing better with the pain, but my hearing capabilities are lessened. Maybe I need some ear cleaning again (I did one 2 years ago) but after all this inflammation is gone. There is some pain that kicks for a second and then disappears but everything sounds OK for 2 days now. Last Thursday, everything was OK with it, until I had a shower afternoon and it started to kick out an unbelievable pain! And today, surely I have to take some shower, otherwise I'm gona be sooooo stinky!!

Working conditions are quiet and the regular fight with sales persons and invoices shall begin soon I believe after the delivery of some devices. I hate that but anyway, this is the good part of being not in a high place or position! Because your signatures typically means nothing! Well, I have to report the conditions with my director anyway and this is something manageable from my side at least.

Checking after my tail, I guess I have to note down some words in Bulughman and Zimuran, and also Betenic (the freshly made conlang). Zimuran might be less active, but I think I should add some words to the list of Bulughman and Betenic. When I talk about this I just remember the sad story of GeoCities closing down and having to do a huge work again in some other place! I think I can avoid this problem by buying a domain from Yahoo! but this is not so suitable for a humble page like mine with a simple design and not really intended for a commercial work at all! Man, all my brain thinks of right now is ........... VACATION. And I mean a vacation away from everything! Just me, my camera and nature.

No response yet from the Irish embassy in Riyadh... this is the first time for me to send a passport outside... so this kinda makes me awry.

Pain Pain Pain...

Sounds like if my life is a wreck.

The pain in my right ear is increasing. It increased right after using the medicine given to me by the doctor. I feel like if the right side of my face is paralyzed. I guess I need to take more painkillers.

I took the sick kitty right now. I feel sorry for him. I didn't want to see him dying with such bad conditions. No one is helping me in the house to take care of him, and apparently my life is a mess right now and can't get a grip of it. I put him somewhere, near the seashore, just before what they call the "Marina Mall Crescent." I laid him on the grass and put some tuna on a paper dish for him there maybe he would be able to get up again and eat, though I don't see any hope there. I spent like KD30 for the vet to take care of him, but nothing changed. I guess he has a great malfunction or disease. I hated to do it, but I hate more to see him dying in front of my eyes without being able to do anything for him. God, Thy mercy.

I guess I won't be able to go out this weekend at all. I was planning to go back to Failaka in the coming days just to check for more sites, but I guess this is not possible with such pain in my head. My only choice is to relax, completely and not moving at all.

I need to write down a word in my diary...

Twirl...

Working on the sketch of the manuscript still with no idea of what to do or what to put down. I didn't start sketching the object yet, but merely the ornamentations that are to be on the sides. I chose to depict a scene from chapter 3 (The bulughmans), first and second verses. The first verse is supposedly showing the image of Alexander crossing the land of day and night, while the second depicts him meeting the Bulughman nomads. This is the idea for now, and of course I had to add the Ayvarith text, and all should be handwritten. Add to that, I did not start writing down the translation of the last chapter. It is just so exhausting, simply by being at work!

On the other hand, I'm trying to squeeze my brain for more words for poetry. I had a nice period last week of flowing words into my mind. This week seems dull. Some emotional matters are shaky at the moment leaving me in a dilemma of what to do next. This might be reason for the busy mind and the inability to write more poetry.

I picked the little kitty to the vet and kept it there. Hopefully I'm going to get it by tomorrow if possible, and I hope he's going to be OK and walking again. I think I have to build some sort of a house (maybe from a hard-paper box) and keep it cool somehow away from the sun heat, for him and for his mother as well.

Maybe I don't know or understand how animals talk or think, but I could see clearly the sadness on the cat's face for taking away her kitty, specially that she was not around when I picked him up. She doesn't say much in the yard now and mostly outside, probably looking after him. I hope she feels OK when I bring him tomorrow... if everything went alright.

My ears are aching, most probably because of using the headphone at work all the time and listening to the Irish music out loud. I hate to go to the doctor to check for this. Today, I forcefully stopped using the headphones and listening to music at work. I hope it gets OK soon that way, or else, I have to check the doc.

Exhaustion...

Exhaustion. Extreme exhaustion. I try to stay focused on what I'm doing but I can't keep my eyes open. No power to do anything almost.

In the meantime, I'm trying to make my sketch for the manuscript model. It is hard to do any ornamentations. I usually do a lot of line-art when I'm bored in classes or meetings. But here, I try to find ideas to ornament in the center of the page still! I don't know how am I going to do the main drawing.

While this mess goes on, I still get some words inspirations and made two poems. The first, I called it "The Ballroom" while the second one I called "Avenue 51." Avenue 51 was where my old house lied. I recalled some of the memories there and pinned that down.

My little kitty (well, not really mine but I feed him daily) had disappeared suddenly and we don't know where is he yet. I hope he shows up... alive. Last time I found him out of the house on the floor breathing hardly. He drank a huge amount of water compared to his little size. I hope this won't happen again.

As for now, I don't know when to try to translate the 6th part of the story of Alexander. Just looking at this huge amount of papers makes me shiver and change my mood! Lot of things to do, and my mood (and my power) is not helping at all...

65 Pages!!!

Printed out the text file of the last part in the story of Alexander. It costed me 65 A4 pages! Thank God I have printers in my work place! 65, is the number after minimizing the font to 10 or 11 (I don't remember) and making it bold. I had to go around the printers available like if I was checking eggs under hens. Printed out the pages in blue since the black ink was over. Life is hard these days indeed!

Now I have to think of some way to devise some time to this tideous work. Another tideous work awaits for me when Geocities is closed and I don't know yet what to do. I'm busy with my own projects rather than with my own work. Although this busy mind is not taking a rest, either with work-related thoughts or... some other thoughts, I was able to write another poem. I called it "Knocknacarra." Knocknacarra is a town in County Galway, Ireland. Never been these of course but seen some images of it on the web. Like all Irish towns, it is a lovely place by its own right. But for this poem, I like the sound of the name. Knocknacarra (Gaelic: cnoc na cathrach), is pronounced (by me at least) in this manner: kanok-na-carrah. Notice though in the Gaelic version there is a German "CH" sound, while "TH" is considered "H" (T with lenition or aspiration).

No news yet from the Irish embassy or from DHL about my passport. Hope I won't get into troubles more than what I have here. I've been living with no Receiver (satellite dish receiver). My receiver is not catching any signal, and I don't know whether the reason is the wires or the receiver itself. Not in mood to fix it just right now, thus I spend the day with some video tapes I had long ago. I just need something going on in the room to banish the silence.

The little devil staring the camera. First time for him to see such a thing.

The kitty is getting better after the last time I found him out of the house and lying on the ground motionless. I still think his body is weak though, but at least he is moving. I can't really depend on anyone to take care of him or feeding him while I'm away, thus I just start taking care of him directly after coming back from work with no break or rest.

I have now to start sketching something. Drawing and sketching been always a frightening experience for me. I think I have some sort of a phobia for everything related to drawing. But before doing so, I must find a way to clip these 65 pages together!!!

Idle...

Been idle for some days. Trying to take care of the new kitty that was left out from the couple, after the death of the previous one. Feeding him and taking care of plants and spraying water all over the place fo cool down the place in this crazy heat... I'm powerless.

Thoughts race through my mind of how to begin drawing a manuscript-like sketches and color them to be added later on in my photos collection and also to be an aid in my Ayvarith page. Also, I almost forgot that I have to translate the 6th and final part of Alexander's story! The Ayvarith page in Geocities will be removed since Yahoo! will end this service soon, which leaves me like a homeless now! I have to think of another website to build up this free page. Not only that, but also to transfer the files and also maybe make a new template for the webpage. Moving the dictionary alone is a killing pain. Still no news about the exact time of the closure.

Things at work are going smoothly, and I'm waiting for a reply from the Irish embassy about my Visa status. I've been writing some poems, the latest was "If the world is made of gold"and trying hard not to lose the trend of ideas for poems in my mind.

Walking with my camera and taking photos here and there. It helps sometimes to make some ideas for poetry as well.

The little amigo lying on the floor and staring at my camera.

I found him yesterday out of the house for some reason I don't know,

and he was thirsty and hungry and barely could stand up with this crazy heat.

I think today he is better and able to walk again.