Up To Some Point...

It was a quiet day... up til some point when all the paperwork started. We are trying to get a damned fingerprint machine into our building to avoid running here and there by morning and by the end of the day just to do this silly thing. The responses we are getting give some indication that the administrative office here is reluctant with doing this. I really don't know what's the problem with those guys... sometimes I do feel like they are sadists and just like to make us suffer.

I didn't write anything today and didn't do any translation work, but organized a bit in my profile in www.writing.com. Hopefully I'll get the spark to start the new chapter soon. I spent my day chatting instead and getting new nice photos from people... nice people!

As you can see in the profile below, Canstockphoto.com accepted my last submission (but still more files are on the list), while fotolia.com rejected one of my photos (typical) and the reason was "overabundant category." Well, at least they didn't complain about the resolution or the noise in the image... somehow makes me feel satisfied about the work I did.

Time to pack and get back home now....

Blackened Image

After being absent yesterday, I tried my best to come early today, as usual, although I've slept almost like none hours. Today, I decided not to bring the big envelope where I keep the papers for Alexander's story and its translation. By this, I'm trying to dedicate more time for my story. Things been slow... so damn slow. I decided to stop fasting for the time being, trying to get more of my energy re-collected hoping that it would help me in the process of writing.

Nightmares of car accidents had been chasing me all the week, and today was no exception. Even though with such dreams, I don't like driving "more safely" at all! Today even was an extra exception, when suddenly I felt the rage inside of me and kept on pushing the accelerator to the max, and if it wasn't for the speed cameras I wouldn't have used the brakes at all. Although it is usual for me to be mad like that in the early hours of the morning because of the stinky drivers I meet daily, but today it was something else that I couldn't understand... a rage like for no reason... or maybe it is a direct effect for my bad sleeping habit. I think I'm going insane soon if I didn't go on vacation soon. The diarrhea is another story as well. I think it is connected to my sleeping. I think my digestive system is not working well because it doesn't take the break it needs while I'm sleeping. I feel just so weak! Well... I'm weak already...

I think I had put the final touch for the first chapter of the story right now. The name I settled for right is "Blackened Image," but yet, this is subject to change later on. Then I think I shall name the first chapter as "The End Begins..." where the "end" here denotes death itself. I don't know yet if what I wrote is long or short, but I think I will write more to it later on when it comes to reviewing again and again. Writing is indeed not an easy task at all... this is a word from a beginner like me.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to work on a new poem... I got the title which was inspired out of nothing... yet, I can't tell what the topic of the poem would be! The title is settled for "Over The Dandelion."

I can foresee some hard days coming work-wise. My colleague is announced to be in a 60 days leave without any notification. In fact, there is a notification. The notification arrived by post from the admins office today, announcing that my colleague is indeed on a leave starting from 18th of July. If she is supposed to be on a leave (automatically) and not attending work, then how she's supposed to be reading the post? Would it be delivered to her house? Come on... this is Kuwait. Talk about Stupidity and it comes right away to your door! :)
The consequences of such matter is that, I have to handle the matters in the center alone. The most behated part in all of this is, answering phones and dealing with papers which she took the burden of. As for me, it was OK for me to go under this sun to any desired destination (almost), but I just hate answering the phone. I think I have some kind of a phobia against it, specially after the many trials that I passed regarding my hearing abilities. Ah well... life goes on... .

I got happy news today! The DHL service called me to re-collect my passport back from the Irish embassy. Can't wait to get back home and see it. I have to pay something like KD20.800 as fees for the Cash-On-Delivery service, but who cares now. I'm almost done with everything. All what I need to do for now I guess, is pack and get prepared for some tiny details. It's going to be a tiresome trip just to reach Dublin. I think I have to book some tickets as well from now, to take a plane from Dublin to Galway, or might as well do it whenever I arrive into Dublin by the Metro. The return of the passport now is not necessarily an indication that I was accepted a Visa, but I don't think I'm going to be refused one!

Belleza Bendita

Today was a day that ran like a train in my life. Beginning with the early morning in the office changing samples and running devices, and then I spent a plenty of time working with photoshop over a photo of one cute girl (no names to be mentioned) that I called, Belleza Bendita. I made a mistake though in the design as I typed "bendito" instead of "bendita." She is a girl from somewhere with latin and italian roots, so imagine the shape! :)
Belleza Bendita means "Blessed Beauty." This is just what I see in her, and the most fascinating thing, in the whole thing, is the hazel eyes.

Later this morning, I had a call again from the Irish embassy asking me to fax some papers. They called me back on Wednesday asking me to do the visa online (which is something I checked for but I didn't find any information in their site confirming that)... however, I had to run here and there and back home to get the papers and sign them then send them by fax from a photocopy shop.

Got lot to do with photos these days, from people and from my own camera. The photo above is a minimized version of the panoramic view that I composed on the seashore Thursday's morning. The play of colors is, of course, made up... don'tell me you didn't figure this out! The actual size is around 3 meters by 1 meter (WxH). I think that would be somewhere around 9ft by 3ft. I wonder why don't they use the metric!!! It's easier!

Beside fixing photos and doing designs with photos, there is a queue of games that is waiting, and that makes me be idle for sure from completing my story. Games have their own priorities! :)

The yield for today is 2 pages of translation. Also, I discovered a new type of mistakes this time! A reptitive number sequences! YUK!
The repetitive sequence of numbers means that the verse is already more than 24 lines somehow, so if we assumed the total number of lines (after the previous mistakes were found) is 2997, I guess the number now would be 2999... well, closer to 3000, the supposed original number! But still, more mistakes to be found I guess...

As I was trying to type something for my story I figured out that the time doesn't help now, so I went on typing this entry instead... hoping that I might be able to do something at home with my story.
I had some thought of living some tiny adventure by trying to go to one of the islands, namely Miskan, where an old lighthouse built by the british still survives there, beside the new one as I read once. I don't know how much does it take to reach that place, but I heard that I can rent one of the boats lying around in some marinas. I need to re-think about it... specially with such a hot weather now.

It's just amazing, that feeling when you make someone smile... and from one second of dispair, you do make them fly... I think being a single man until this moment of my life, is paying back in a form of virtues... despite the devil that lives within me from time to time... Alas! Life, and so shall it go...

5 hours!

As I tried hard to use this 3 days weekend as much as I can, I decided to go to the shore Yesterday's morning and try to give it a shot. The results were disappointing. I tried to be there just before the sunrise. I reached the place before the sunrise, but unfortunately, there were some people who were like camping in the place, and this is not so good to catch things with your camera. This is one thing that counts for the virtues of winter time! No people in early morning because of the coldness and yet you get nice sunset and sunrise views and colorful skies... in summer, nothing.
I didn't give up though, so I tried my best ot use the photos somehow. The HDR trials (with 3 successive shots in 3 different exposures) failed because of the little breeze, the bushes started to move making unstable shot. The tone mapping also did not work, as I am no so experienced with it and maybe the exposure gaps between shots must be something greater than 1/3 stop? I'm not sure.
To not turn the situation into a complete disaster, I decided to use the magic of photoshop here and try to do something here, and you can see the result above in the beginning. The sunrising wasn't so obvious as the sun started to raise up behind some clouds of dust or so, and the sundisk was not obvious until 30 minutes after the beginning of the rise!

The great disappointment however, was when I got back home and worked a bit with my pc, some photo processing and some games, and then went to bed. I was awake for like 12 hours or more, but after all I couldn't sleep more than 5 hours. The timing is almost a constant for me... the 5 hours thing is the fixed sleeping time however tired I might be. Today, I slept more than 5 hours but in fact, I was just flipping in bed napping and waking up every 30 minutes, but essentially, I slept for 5 hours only!
I don't think I will be able to do anything with my story or the translation in this holiday, but I will keep on playing and playing! I might consider stopping my fasting just to take a cup of coffee and write something by day time. The cold AC in this room freezes my fingers and, well, I guess I must stop typing this!

Back to Normal?

Today was not quite a busy day... but I spent lot of time chatting in some rooms. I miss going there for some time so went on to try my luck again and get some new "friends" if I should say. Although I dedicated this day for translation, but I couldn't do more than 2 pages til this very moment, and since the time is close to when I leave this place, I guess I won't work on more of it. It was kind of an active day at work however; watching over devices, and answering phone calls like a secretary.

I'm back to fasting again. I got my 2 nieces 2 gifts yesterday... some "sand coloring." Hope they'll like it.

Maybe I reached a deal with myself concerning how to plan for my writing progressing... I guess I will make one day for translating and the next one for writing my story, and so on. As for poetry, I shall pin it down whenever inspiration strikes again. Some words are hovering around my mind but still I can't collect my thought and write something. I guess it would be something about the Dandelion.

We have a religious holiday tomorrow and that makes this weekend made of 3 days instead of 2! Must use them somehow, but I just can tell how! If only I can go to Failaka island for more photos to snap. Well, I might try as well to do some photography around my place somehow, or try to catch the sunrise as I used to do in the old days... but the sunrise nowadays is so early that I'm not sure I'm going to catch it. Sometimes you get so frustrated about your holiday that you just can't think of what to do in it until it's all passed out!

Well, time for me to pack my stuff and get back home and have a nap... I might do some mischief tonight!

Brainstorming Needed...

Today, I decided not to do any translation for Alexander's story, and concentrate more on writing something for my story in writing.com. I can't say I did write much but in general sense it was more than I did before in the past few days. As for the translation it can wait. I had to do this to keep on catching the ideas that were afloat in my brain at the time of the writing. Up til now I can say the story is still so short. The latest count are: 8048 words in general, and 268 lines. I have an idea of naming the story "Ear to Ear" for some reason mentioned in the story, which I won't tell for now!

I stopped fasting today, as I have some plans to things out tonight and I'd need to have dinner. I hope the day passes out fine, since the mall I'm going to is a mess... specially with kids not having any schools right now. It won't make much a difference if you go by weekend or in the middle of the week now. I have to go to buy some gifts for my niece, who will have her birthday at the 23rd of the month.

Thoughts were and are racing in my mind for the time being: If I had kids, should I be tortured like those parents I see nowadays? Why having kids is a pain? I had a thought that, what if I had a kid, and I made him be part of my activities... like surf the net together or playing the games I play together? If the parents nowadays are doing the same and still complain about their kids, then I surely have no idea about the real situation of the parents nowadays!

You might ask about the photo in the beginning of this entry... well... there is no occasion really. Just felt of putting it there! I shot this photo on the seashore with my old Sony camera. It was sunrise, and the play in th exposure rate made the view to be sort of tropical. You don't want to see the real thing... it was just a punch of old dry branches and trashed sand on the ground! Camera tricks sometimes are a "must" !

Time In No Time

It was somehow a quiet day today... not much troubles! But I had to spend most of the time coping with this damned connection here which was like ON and OFF most of the time, while I download some of the files from one of my accounts in GeoCities. I should check if they enabled the FTP for this purpose, it was a tiresome task and took over most of my time. Right now, I finished downloading the contents of 3 of my accounts, and yet there are another 3 to go (or is it 2? I can't remember). The idea of this close-down strikes me with nostalgia, if I can call it so. I think there is no way but to re-build and make a new theme for the Ayvarith website... somewhere else this time.

The yield for today's translation was 2 verses, reaching line #480, which would be something else if I corrected the missing numbers that I've found! I didn't find more missing lines so far, which makes me relax a bit. Thinking about the transliteration that I have to do shakes my mood violently... I don't know when to do this, and I think I failed to push myself to work on it at home. I'm busy playing some games! Games are so important for me and I take it as a homework!

I didn't work on my story for days now, but thinking of working on it little bit after posting this entry. It would be awesome if I can manage to be some where, maybe overlooking the sea and try to concentrate on writing it... nature is an eloquent motivational speaker.

If only I can control my mood... I would have plenty of time for everything...

On the other hand, we got some photos from Iraq, from the holy site of Al-Kazimain, from a friend of the family, Sayyid Abbas. Notice that "Sayyid" is a title and not a name (though some people use it as a name). I managed to manipulate them a bit with photoshop to make more vibrant colors, since most of the photos were taken in a dusty weather. Please, click on each photo to read a commentary about it:

Quiet and Busy

Quiet and busy. This is the theme of the day. Although I had stuff to do here and there today in the labs, and worked on cleaning a detector which had a space narrower than the ant's eye, but I didn't do much compared to some other days in fact, and I had a nice 2 hours of sleep in my office! YES!

I'm writing this in a hurry just before I leave work in this burning sun and storming dust. I didn't do much translation for 2 days now but I'm trying hard to write more and more in the other story I'm writing in www.writing.com. I tried to push myself further to work at home with the paper stuff and the translation, but unfortunately it was hard stuff for me to do since I'm completely out of power and mood and mostly asleep in the afternoons. I guess I need more will power.

Tomorrow is the promised day for my appointment for the ear-cleaning, and since the clinic is closed in the near by center, I have to go to the hospital which I do really hate. I hope no more complications arise since I don't really need more of them... really.

It is nice to wake up and figure out that all what was going on is just a dream. I had an awful dream just few minutes ago while sleeping in the office; It was like if I overslept and the office is locked! Gosh, I don't watch horror movies but yet these stuff must chase me all around!

Well, time to say goodbye!

Monday, 13th.

As the main title says... Monday 13th. One of the most brilliant days of my life. Why? 'Cos I hate Mondays and I hate the number 13. People just don't believe me about this, but it just happens to be so... it is my experiment that proves so. I'm writing these words just some minutes before leaving my work place, since I couldn't type them earlier because of the damned connection problem that made me out of the internet here for more than 45 minutes.

Just as I planned to give my full interest today to write more in the story I'm writing now, I had to leave the office for a while because some interviews were to be made in the meeting room which is the same as my office's place. Group of techno guys came in and spend all the day there and yet no progress they made with the device they brought, so they wasted some hours of my valuable time. Then, I get back to the office and I see that nothing is working with the connection here. I couldn't even update or write the story and I couldn't even work on the translation because I need the online dictionary to help me with some words as well. This day was a complete disaster.

I have to push myself more to do some work at home with the story of Alexander. I have ideas for other stories racing through my mind but I'm afraid to start any. I'm spreading myself thin already. I must finish this thing first. I have an upcoming upheaval of work related to the page of Ayvarith since GeoCities is closing down. Damn just to remember how many accounts I had in their system makes me really really melancholic! I have to download all at once!

Well, what can I say about this day. Just I was telling my partner in the lab this morning, I hate Mondays and I hate number 13 and she laughed and did not believe it. I hope now she will consider now. I didn't fast today 'cos I didn't have my night meal yesterday... so it's like an open day for me... maybe this is the only one good thing about this Monday... that I didn't fast preparing myself for the tiresome time that I would pass through later in day.

I'm looking seriously for more handwriting analysis from sites here and there. I'm comparing prices and asking questions but no answers yet. I wanna take a deep look into myself though. Sometimes such things can make you think deeply about the potentials that you might be carrying on without knowing them, and once known to you, you might be able to open the gates for a new career that you might get happy with.

As for me for the time being, I'm going to worry about the upcoming appointment for my ear and the catastrohpic event of removing the clinic from the medical center in my area. I have to go to some hospital now which I do really hate. I might consider going to a private clinic though.

Gosh, I'm waiting for this day to finish as soon as possible... with peace.

Yes. I'm A Single...

It was a quiet day... although I had to get lost from my office for some time so the new applicants make their interview for a job position in our center. I spent my time going through the buildings and passing through old memories as well. Well, I can say I achieved something this day at least.

The yield for today was 2 verses only. I was aiming for more than that but I had to stop and do other things. Strangely enough, although I used to type my poems on computer, I felt myself urged to write one poem on paper today. I called it, The Thing. In the same time I had an idea of scanning this page and post it for some handwriting analysis. I've always been fascinated by such analyses.

It had been some days and I didn't touch my story. There is so much to take care of right now, specially that I might have to rebuild my Ayvarith page again. GeoCities sent an email already that they will close down by the 26th of October, I will have to download my files OR I can pay some monthly fee to make my own domain (which is something I don't want to do!). It seems quite a time til then and I can do it slowly but I really hate to delay this one thing, specially that I don't know yet whether or not I will be travelling to Ireland on October. Damn, just thinking about it scares the crap out of me! I might even need to do things in Flash again! Oh my God! Not in mood for it at all.

My thoughts were stirred around a bit because of some words that my friend said to me last Thursday. He applied for some job with another friend but they didn't accept him while they accepted the other. They gave out some grading but it was not convenient for our understanding. My friend said that it is probable that they accepted the other friend because he is married already while he is a single. It is in fact quite logical and might be very true as well. I've heard about some places that prefer married people over singles because of the stability of life, or more like the desire to stable their life for the sake of their marriage status and to maintain their homes. It is a discrimination if you ask me! I don't mean to banish the rights of my married friend in that job, but we singles got also a life to live I suppose... if every well-paid job in this country is to be occupied by married people only just because they need it, then why do I bother to study and get a certificate of some sort? I can simply then get married to anyone just to get a job. Ah! wouldn't that solve the problem of singles in this land?
It is just frustrating. Either you get looked upon as some loser and a careless person just because you are a single, or get married and be respected and also get in troubles of debts and money like all married are in this country. I'm not against marriage, but to spend half of my fortune just to be married is something completely illogical and I will never understand it. What you get at the end? People talking about women's rights in this country while you have the broken back... Salute!

Few Good Men

Completely and idle day. I feel like drugged... can't do a thing, can't comprehend anything. I was almost going to not fast this day but well, I did fast although it is not a complete fasting, but at least let's say I didn't eat or drink.

Couldn't face my paper work... my diary... my story... well I typed some few lines in my story but it wasn't much in fact. I'm typing these last words and waiting for my time to get out of this office and head home and sleep like I never did.

I'm going out with my friend tonight, to some theatre play. Thus, I predict for myself, that I won't be able to attend work tomorrow. Let's hope I can at least fingerprint and get back home to nap. I wish if I do have some good men to depend on and do me this favor. My only friend, is far from this place. The heart and its ways of identifying thing is amazing when it comes to friends and enemies. Your brain translates it as something, but yet, your heart says something else. This is all what I have around me... laughing people, and few good men... if any.

Yikes!

Another discovery of missing numbers! This time 4 lines are missing between 374 and 378. The story is not missing but only the numbering is messed around. Under the light of the new event here then the total lines of the story is 2993.

Today, I translated only one verse (which was started yesterday but completed today) as I was sick of the place here. I had to do adminstrative job and translate 3 pages typed by my colleague before his travelling to his vacation. The contents were highly scientific in terms, and sometimes I had to leave them as they are, untouched, leaving the document look half Arabic and half English. I had also to drive to some computer stores to buy a converter piece (USB to 9-pin) with the money I had from the adminstrative office (purchase department here) as we need for some laptop connectivity. I barely had time to translate my own project with Alexander's story. In fact I had no mood at all. I was planning as well to write some words into my diary which I brought with me today, as I had some thoughts and wanted to pin them down on paper, but I guess this won't be for now since most of the ideas are vaporized by now. I'm trying now to write down something for my story as I didn't write down a thing yesterday and was trying to think of some way to fabricate the events.

I googled some sites for tips on writing a mystery and some views contradicted somehow, so I guess every author has his or her own unique way of thinking and approach. One of the authors in his tips actually suggested the same thing I did in the beginning, which is a random start and the story would go by itself as you go writing, but with an exception that the end must be well established and outlined already for the rest of the show.

Starting as well now to play "Still Life 2." A thrilling game I've been waiting for. It's about some serial killer that practices his rituals in US. The story is a continuation for the first part, thus it is better to play that one first and then the second. It is a detective game with some vulgar language (so check out your age rank) and some unpleasant views and violence... but hey, I'm not intending to apply these in real life... or ... ?

An Awful Discovery...

I just discovered that I made a big mistake in the numbering in my writing for the 6th part of Alexander's story. One of the verses, #15, has missing 3 missing lines in between 353-356. The story goes well, in fact the lines are not missing but I should say the numbering is a mess. In that sense, the whole story is shorter than 3000 lines, and more like 2997 lines! I kept the numbers as they are so as not to lose the track of the story when I translate.

Monday, as always, my very bad-lucky day. I had to be interrupted several times and couldn't complete one simple conversation on MSN. While a gentleman got into my office seeking some job like if I was a manager and he had hard time understanding that I'm not responsible for any jobs but he has to check the main adminstrative office. Then, tata! Just after he left, my connection is down and never up again til this very moment of writing this. I love this day, NOT.

I went for my appointment today in the early morning as well and boy how I loved the clinic, I was number 1 then I discovered I'm 2, then discovered I have to register a number so I got number 4. Then on the queue, they had to let in number 5 before me. Don't you love living in this country? Amazing. The doctor checked my ear and said that I have fungi in it. She cleaned some but said that I must use some ear drops for ten days! Boy, wasn't that ugly when she cleaned my ear and stuff showed off, and then she used the sucking vacuum and took off a chunk of what was inside. I got 2 medicines now, one as anti-mycotic (for fungi in my right ear) and another drop to be used 5 days before my appointment in my left ear to soften the wax I believe. Life is hard just by living in it, isn't it?

Man, I can't wait til the night of this day pass over... I hate Mondays...

Busy Day...

A busy day. Couldn't do much translation work today, opposite to last Thursday when I finished 4 verses. A record for me for the time being!

I couldn't take a nap in the office as I usually do, because I HAD to sort out some applications for applicants to choose an adequate secretary, or as they like to call themselves now, an administrative organizer. I really don't care much about it, all what I need is someone that can speak English to communicate with my colleague here. To me, I lost a valuable time. Could've used this time for translating some lines. I did one paper already but I have a headache now and I can't do more for the time being.

I've been driving down town to get some stuff for my work place with the "pitty cash." I was amazed that they announce in the forecast on the radio that the dust is clearing off and giving way, while I was driving and can barely see for 100m in front of me! Hilarious! And tomorrow I have another round.

I had to spend some time also to chat with an old friend over the MSN. A french friend. It was somehow a short chat and she had to leave but I let out some burden from my chest. I feel mountains lying over this chest. This morning I got myself 2 notes, one is the usual one that I use for my diary, and the other is a black one... to pin down some... blackish deeds I've done. I might release some pressure from this chest. I didn't tell my MSN friend about all of that but... I might do as well later on.

Losing concentration and the mood for everything... specially work.

I'm working on completing the story that I started which is supposedly to be a mysterious one... ah well... needs lot of work. So, I'm seeking the help of google for some tips.

Idle Day

An idle day. Didn't go to work, and slept most of my day. I didn't sleep at all last night and remained awake til early hours of the morning. Downloaded a new game, I guess I will go on and spend some time with it. Also, I got the latest series of Poirot! Woho!

Just not to keep this day so idle like that, and since, usually, I don't do any translation work for Alexander's story at home, I decided to start writing a story or something. I write 3 lines so far, and I consider it so much compared to my mental activity nowadays. I have no mood for anything in fact.

Last night it was a special one. I was able to draw a smile on the face of someone in need. This is, I believe, the virtue of being sinle and not married; you can help others without any fear of being short in cash or something or not being able to feed your kids... . Sometimes I do really ask myself, is life supposed to be that hard? Children are supposedly a bless, what makes them such a hard burden on the back? Personally, myself, I've been sick of other's kids and I don't think I would like to have kids any time soon... speaking like I get married in the first place!

Well, better check some games... I might get some positive mood back!